neither lost nor found
by tonberrys-and-kuchikopi
Summary: In the thick of the first war with Voldemort, Regulus steals the locket horcrux; and pulled from the grip of its trials, he survives the cave. What follows is a tale of espionage, blood politics, and accidental vigilantism. Welcome to 1979.
1. Out of the Cave

**Chapter 1: Out of the Cave**

* * *

From the basin came a green glow, quivering against the dark shadows of the seaside cave. For some, green was the colour of life; for others, the colour of death. For Regulus, kneeling before that basin of emerald green potion, green was the colour of fear.

Chaos spun behind his eyes, but Regulus hadn't moved an inch since he dropped to his knees. In his hand, he clutched a locket, green and gold and emblazoned with the bold twist of an S. A decoy. A final stab of revenge, covered by illusion.

The waking nightmares stuck to his throat, clawing upwards to seize the fuzzy edges of his thoughts with an iron grip. Potion still coated his tongue, but the taste had faded with the shock of a sudden, delirious sense of despair. He was more parched than he had ever been, more parched than he thought anyone could be and still remain alive, but it was his mother's furious shrieks that monopolised his thoughts. Regulus could hear them ringing in his ears with such clarity that she might have been standing right behind him.

 _(DISGRACE! BLEMISH! SHAME TO THIS HOUSE!)_

For what may have been seconds—or perhaps even minutes—Regulus doubled over to tuck his head between his knees. Though he tried to block out the images burning in his own thoughts, his clenched eyes offered no reprieve, nor could rubbing at his ears serve to drown out the screaming. (A failure—a traitor—) His throat was like sandstone, and no matter how he might rub furiously at the soft skin beneath his chin and jaw, the rawness lingered.

Kreacher's distress cut through the din, and Regulus tried to focus on him through the haze and the shrieking. It was then that Regulus felt the locket in his hand again, remembered why he was here, and the realisation that he had almost forgotten made his stomach turn.

' _I don't want to!'_ his mind screamed, fingers digging into the back of his head when he heard Kreacher scraping the last of the potion from the bottom of the basin. Kreacher was probably about to finish it himself—a realisation that jarred Regulus deep in his stomach—so he forced himself to sit up, catching the house-elf's eyes.

"Hand it to me," Regulus said a little shakily, and for a moment it seemed like Kreacher wasn't going to comply. His fragile frame was tense all over, his eyes stricken, and the cup was clasped tightly in two boney, trembling hands. All at once, he was overcome with the urge to throw himself in the lake if it would only make the burning stop, making the yelling stop, making everything—stop—

Yet Kreacher was handing him the cup now, and Regulus grabbed it before he could change his mind, downing the last swallow with one hand as he switched the two lockets with the other.

Clasped securely in his grip, Regulus now held a broken shard of the Dark Lord's soul. This locket was a bid for immortality; it was the security that the Dark Lord was counting on to outlast the human shields he sent out to die in his name.

"Keep this safe— Destroy it when you can—" Regulus murmured as he thrust the locket into the house-elf's hand, but it only made Kreacher more upset. There was something else Regulus had wanted to say—more sentiments, most instructions—but he could not focus at all. His throat was burning, his stomach was churning, his head was bursting...

 _(UNGRATEFUL CHILD! TRAITOR, JUST LIKE THE OTHERS—)_

Better a dead heir than a visible traitor, they would probably say; a lesser shame to kill the name than to besmirch the last of it… With a crushing sense of loneliness, he tried to think of the locket (it was worth it—it was worth it—), tried to think of the people who might be spared an immortal megalomaniac, tried to think about the look of horror on the Dark Lord's face when he realised what had happened… (—it was worth it—)

As Regulus stumbled towards the water's edge, he paused for only a beat before dipping his fingers beneath the glassy surface of the lake. He could not differentiate the cries of his elf from the cries of his mother—that roar within his skill was fuzzy—chaotic—but when a cold and slimy hand yanked him beneath the water, the world went quiet. Everything became cold, raking hands. Something horrible clawed at his neck in a throttling grip, though it made little difference when there was no air to gasp for. Instead, Regulus took in a mouthful of the water, and the burn spread from his throat to his lungs as a desperate panic seized him. Clawing back was met with a bloated wall of bodies; opening his eyes revealed nothing more than blurry shadows, but he knew what they were.

For once, no thoughts thundered through his mind; every moment was grabbing and railing and trying to cough up the pressure in his lungs, only to welcome more water in. Crowded as he was, Regulus almost did not notice the sensation of being pulled upward, save for the sudden weighted resistance as the inferi gripped more tightly.

His hand felt it first: the slightly chilled air of the cave. For a frantic moment, Regulus grasped at nothing—until bony fingers were clasped in his, and he sunk below the surface again. He could feel the small hand slip slightly, and a heightened panic beat against his skull: _Kreacher!_

Suddenly, he felt the rush of something pushing the slippery hands away, followed by the telltale tug in his stomach, yanking him out of the lake. In an instant, he and Kreacher landed in a heap on solid stone ground.

Regulus's eyes stung with a salty blur. He attempted to open them for only a flash before clenching them closed again, mixing what might have been tears with the stream of lake water dripping down his face. The first desperate bid for air staggered into a coughing fit that Regulus thought might never end, tightening in his chest until he wretched up a mix of water, that terrible green potion, and whatever else had been in his stomach. Even as he inched back from the mess on wobbly limbs, every breath triggered another cough until he once again curled up, head tucking between his knees. He could feel his heart thumping in his skull, and for a moment, that was all he let his mind focus on.

Kreacher's spindly fingers rested on Regulus's back, triggering a sudden jolt that tightened every muscle in his body. It took a moment before he was breathing again, counting the seconds with each inhale and exhale.

"Kreacher will keep the young master safe," Kreacher was murmuring, his tone much calmer than it had been on the island, if equally shaky. "The locket and the young master both."

Though a lightheaded haze remained thick in Regulus's mind, he sat up, feeling the return of some measure of control over his breathing. He and Kreacher were at the entrance to the cave chamber, on the other side of the blood magic door...

Regulus suddenly wanted to go home as desperately as he knew he shouldn't. (Better a dead son than a traitor—) Stumbling into number twelve, Grimmauld Place with sopping wet robes and a lingering panic was not a risk he felt willing to take. There were other properties, left abandoned when the Blacks who had once owned them at last passed away, but it was their summer home in Porth Iago that leapt to the forefront of his mind. No one would be there yet… This marked his first night back from Hogwarts, and the others may well still be celebrating their return, somewhere out there. Somewhere, but not the Welsh coastline, he would guess.

"Take me to the house in Iago," Regulus croaked, followed by another coughing fit, but Kreacher did not wait for him to quiet before gripping his arm and apparating them both from the cave onto the floor of his family's summer home.

The house was dark, bathed in inky shadows, and so quiet that he could still hear his heart beating in his chest. Regulus did not need light to imagine the sparse pictures of their (acknowledged) family and the austere decor, nor to imagine the empty bedrooms at the top of the staircase just off to the side. The only break to the silence was the drip of water on the wood flooring, the pattering footsteps, and the slightly wet sound of Regulus's lingering cough.

This place could not shield him for long, he knew; a traitor had no place, and with what he'd done, Regulus supposed he was a traitor to the Cause now. He did not feel like a traitor— _the Dark Lord was the one using them_ —but this matter of semantics was not a problem he had expected to face. Word choice mattered so much less when you were dead, but he knew a number among the living who would care rather a lot.

Clamping his eyes shut, Regulus took a steadying breath to clear his mind, though his legs were still wobbly beneath him. Barty—he could not call upon Barty. However dear a friend, there was no way he could explain this eloquently, and certainly not without suspicion. The same applied to Narcissa, however reassuring either of them might be in the moment. He could not go home to his mother…

Treacherously, his mind flicked to a rather different member of the family—a brother he oughtn't even acknowledge, much less call upon. Associating himself with Sirius was a dangerous game in itself, but he supposed it wasn't any more dangerous than stealing a fragment of the Dark Lord's soul and making off with it.

As Regulus opened his eyes again, he steeled himself with resolve; but however resolved the sudden rush of emotion might be, Regulus hadn't the faintest idea where Sirius lived anymore.

"Kreacher… give me the locket, then go fetch Canopus," he began, collapsing into the writing desk chair. "If you see my mother, tell her nothing. Give no indication that anything is out of the ordinary. It's very important. I need to think."

Kreacher did not look any more comfortable with the situation than Regulus himself felt, but the anxiety in the elf's face seemed to fade back to trust as he nodded in confirmation and handed over the object in question. "Does Master Regulus still wish for Kreacher to destroy the locket?"

"Not for right now. I will hold onto it."

With a loud crack, Kreacher disappeared. Regulus's mind was reeling again, spinning with a barrage of intrusive images as he lit his wand and pulled out a small, note-sized piece of parchment along with a quill to dip with ink. ' _I need help,'_ he started to write before scratching it out again. He was still agonising over what to say when Kreacher returned not even a minute later with Canopus in tow. The a golden masked owl was pale, cloaked with gold and brown flecks and quite amicable in temperament, but not even the sight of his owl companion could provide much in the way of comfort.

Again, Regulus tried to find the words to say that wouldn't get the note crumpled up and thrown in the bin. Everything he wrote sounded weak and childish, and Sirius already thought badly enough, as it was. Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Regulus settled:

' _I need you to come to the Iago house immediately. I know it sounds like a trap,  
_ _but I promise you that it is not. Please do not bring anyone with you.  
_ _I would not ask if it was not important.'_

A few drops of water dotted the parchment as he rolled it up, but it was not enough to smudge the message in any significant way, so he soon sent Canopus along. Perhaps Sirius would ignore it, or perhaps he would see it and scoff, but he knew what Regulus was and had yet to turn him into the Aurors, so there was that, at the very least.

With the window closed securely again, Regulus slid down to the floor into a dripping heap. (He couldn't sit on the furniture—not with the blood, not when he was wet—) The more his adrenaline faded, the more he felt the sharp, pounding pain of the gash on his arm, cut jaggedly to get through the blood magic door. His soaked robes felt heavy and chilly and uncomfortable, but he didn't quite trust himself to cast spells on his own person quite yet, and the last thing he needed was to set himself on fire trying to cast a warming spell when he couldn't focus… He just couldn't focus…

"Who does Master Regulus write to?" Kreacher asked.

Kreacher wouldn't understand. Not even now, probably. "We can talk about it another time, but for now, go home. Come back to check on me in two hours. If I'm not here, return to the house again and carry on as normal." After all, if Sirius called the Aurors, there would be nothing Kreacher could do at that point, anyway... "I'm… I'm exploring some options."

Once again, Kreacher did not look particularly pleased at the prospect of separation, but it was only when the elf had disappeared again that Regulus allowed himself to fully slump over his knees.

Shutting his eyes again, he tried not to think.

* * *

"I think your owl is having a nervous breakdown."

Barely through the front door of their flat, and Sirius was forced to agree. Remus was standing outside of his own bedroom, looking at the door to Sirius's but not actually peeking in to see what was going on. Sirius wouldn't have done that. If he'd heard Remus's owl going mental, if he'd had one, Sirius would have gone in wand first, and honestly, he was a little insulted that Remus was putting privacy above the good Sir's wellbeing. Sirius fixed his friend with a glare that he hoped would convey his irritation, then took a few steps past him as he pushed into his room.

He could see Sir "Hootie" Hootsalot slamming his beak at the window and making distressed little chirps. He was flying up and down, his wingspan fully on show. It was almost funny, if it wasn't downright peculiar.

"What's the matter with you?" Sirius asked, but even as he did, he noticed that there wasn't much of anything really wrong with his owl other than a rather strong desire to socialise with the white and gold owl hovering just outside the window.

Sirius lifted the latch, and then gave the window a good shove. As expected, the owl dove in and landed on his desk. Or rather, on the stuff he had piled up on top of where his desk used to be and likely still was under everything. As if Hootie's demeanor wasn't clue enough, the gold and white markings gave away the owl's identity at once.

 _Canopus._

It'd been months since his— _their_ —father's funeral. Sirius hadn't heard hide nor hair of his estranged baby brother since then. They didn't exactly run in the same circles. In the last year since he'd left school, he had only seen him twice: once when he'd realised Regulus was the Death Eater he was fighting in a skirmish, and again at the funeral Sirius wasn't supposed to be at. There was no reason for Regulus's owl to be here now. They didn't really acknowledge each other's existence these days, because if he had to, he might have to face the utterly idiotic decisions that Regulus had made in his absence, and he'd never managed it sober. To this day, only James knew of the confrontation that had revealed who Sirius was fighting on the night he'd first de-masked the little prick and then consequently found himself unable to leave him for the Aurors to pick up. Sirius had thought that guilt and shame were things he'd left on the threshold to the Noble and Most Bullshit House of Black when he'd left, but apparently not.

"Is your owl having a playdate?" Remus asked from the doorway.

Sirius supposed it looked a little bit like that. He'd never wondered if perhaps the two got along when he wasn't looking. Hootie was a regal sort, hence his knighthood, but he was chatty and bandied about where Canopus had always been even-tempered. Perhaps in illustration of the two people they belonged to.

He reached over to retrieve the message, lighting the room with a lazy twist of his wand and unravelling the small parchment. He read it, then read it again. Then a third time.

"Sirius?" Remus prompted. He looked more worried than bemused now.

Rocking from one foot to another, Sirius weighed up his options for only a few seconds. He had to try, didn't he? Some protector he was for the wizarding world if he couldn't keep his own brother safe, but he'd told James afterwards that Regulus had made his bed. If he wanted to change it, he'd have to make the first move. It had to be his choice. What if it had actually happened, and he missed it because he didn't want to go running up to Wales? The day he couldn't take his baby brother in a proper fight was the day he deserved to be dead and buried, anyway.

He re-rolled the note and attached it to Hootie. "Take that round James's if I don't send Canopus back in the next fifteen minutes. Nip him if he's asleep."

"Sirius-" Remus said again, an edge creeping into his tone.

"I'll be back," Sirius told him, "I'm just returning Canopus to his owner."

"Isn't that your brother's owl?" Remus pressed.

"Yep," Sirius said, before calling the white owl over. "But he's not at home, so I want to catch him before I'd have to deal with my dearest mother to do it."

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Remus asked, already shuffling out of his slippers. "If you give it a minute, I could come with you."

"If it was a good idea, why would _I_ do it?" Sirius flashed him what he hoped was a much more confident grin than he felt. "Stop worrying. It's only Regulus. I've been able to stop him by sitting on him since I was three."

Without another word, Sirius apparated with a loud _crack!_ It was still too early for the crowds of the pureblood elite to descend upon the sleepy Welsh village, but that didn't mean it was safe. The house still looked exactly the same, but he felt a stone drop in his stomach as if he had just touched a portkey and had no idea of the destination. This was where he'd run from on the night he'd left; he could see the window and the trellis he'd shimmied down to do it. Though he'd been back to Iago once to see his uncle afterwards, he'd come nowhere near the house itself, and the vague feeling of nerves began gripping into him without him expecting it.

He shoved them down; the place was still locked up, and it didn't look like anyone was in there.

"Let's go see what trouble Regulus has gotten himself into, shall we?" Sirius whispered to the owl, ever the well-behaved.

He took a deep, unsteady breath before turning the door handle and finding that it opened with no discernable ill effect. He didn't know why that surprised him, but it did. It was even more unsettling to look at the pictures in the hallway, barely lit through moonlight. With an unbidden stab, he could even see where he'd been removed from the one or two he'd actually been in. It was what happened to traitors, so he really did refuse to get upset about it. They were only pictures. It didn't matter. He shut the door quietly behind him, as he had no desire to announce his presence in case it was some kind of trap after all.

The door to the parlour was open. The lights weren't on in there either, but there was a dim enough glow that he could see. Wandlight, perhaps. There was also an odd sound, a noise that repeated itself, and it was only when he turned to look in he realised it was water dripping. For some unknown, sense-forsaken reason, Regulus had decided to sit on the floor, sopping wet, and owl someone he wasn't supposed to acknowledge even existed, all without his standard signature or a pristine presentation.

This was going to be bad. Sirius could feel it in his bones.

Instead of greeting his brother or announcing his presence, Sirius walked straight up to the large fireplace and lit it. It didn't matter if it was mid-summer. It was too damn cold to be sitting in wet clothes. He was going to make himself ill. "I hope you've got a good reason to-" Sirius stopped mid-sentence when he got an actual look at him in the light of the fire. "What the hell happened to you?"

Looking a bit more like a fish than normal, Regulus opened his mouth as if to say something, then pressed it to a line, silence stretching for a few uncomfortable beats.

Since that was profoundly unuseful, Sirius knelt down beside him to get a closer look. He downgraded the situation from bad to worse when he realised those were tears in his clothes, and—was he _bleeding_? With his heart suddenly hammering in his ears, Sirius pressed a hand to the floor to check the dripping was definitely water and not blood. It was water; pink-tinged, but water nonetheless. He wasn't about to drop dead.

With a wave of his half-forgotten wand, Sirius lit up the gas lamps. He needed a better look, and he needed it now. Could he downgrade from worse? Something between worst and worse? He noted some redness that looked like it could bloom into some nasty bruising, more prickling cuts, and none of it made any sense. He wanted to ask who'd done that so he could go and end their miserable lives for it, but the fact was that Regulus was a Death Eater; someone could have done this in self-defense.

He banished the thought almost as quickly as he entertained it; this was a physical fight. Regulus wasn't about to get into one of those. Besides, why wouldn't he just go to Narcissa if that were the case?

"Are you bleeding anywhere I should be panicking about?" It would be better to get that out of the way first.

"Just my arm," Regulus mumbled, his voice almost too quiet to hear.

"Your arm?" Sirius glanced down at them, but Regulus was still wound tight like a spring ready to go off. "Let me have a look, then."

Regulus seemed to think about it for a moment, but this time, only a few seconds of uncomfortable silence had passed before he unclamped his arms from their grip around his knees. When he pulled back his left sleeve, it revealed a jagged red mark that looked more like a deep scrape than a clean slice, even if the sleeve—strangely enough—didn't appear to be torn, itself.

Sirius gave a low whistle. "That needs a real Healer," he said, but since Regulus had not apparated to a hospital or one of the old family Healers, he guessed that wasn't the first thing on his mind. Another thought slipped in unbidden—had he been scratched by something? No, it wouldn't a werewolf scratch. They still had almost a week to go before the full. "If you go sit on Dad's chair, I'll get you a towel to press on it for now. Same place as usual?"

Regulus nodded, though he didn't make any move towards the furniture.

It took only a minute to find the towels, even if everything was screaming in Sirius to get the hell out of there. He couldn't exactly leave Regulus there like that. His suspicions were swiftly confirmed when he came back into the parlour and found Regulus hadn't moved at all. It was possible he was concussed, but no real way to know for sure.

With a heavy sigh, Sirius crouched back down and handed him the towel. "Keep the pressure on it. Can you get up?"

Pressing the towel firmly to his arm, Regulus nodded. "Yes."

"Then why are you still on the floor?" Sirius asked.

"I'm wet and bleeding. I don't want to get it on the furniture," Regulus responded, his voice still a little quiet but notably more matter-of-fact.

Of all the idiotic reasons—

"Why are you wet and bleeding?" Sirius asked instead. They both knew he was a bloody idiot about propriety, so the chair issue wasn't the most pressing question right now. "Did someone or something scratch you?"

"I suppose you could say that," Regulus answered vaguely with a pinching expression.

"Something dark?" Sirius pressed. If it's likely to get infected, that meant moving more quickly.

Regulus shook his head. "A rock."

"A rock," Sirius repeated in a deadpan tone. It was unlikely to be a cursed rock, though who knew what they did for fun in the Death Eaters. He'd never had a strong hankering to find out. "I can't do a whole lot about a rock. Why are you wet and picking fights with minerals?"

"It's… I don't really know where to begin." Clamping his eyes shut, Regulus took in a breath and released it as his hand tightened on the towel blotting his arm.

Pushing for the last bit of patience he had, Sirius attempted to keep his voice level. Yelling never got him anywhere when it came to Regulus. He just sulked, and he looked pathetic enough without that. "Then go backwards instead. No one else will be here for what, another week? Why are we here?"

"I can't go home right now." Opening his eyes again, Regulus's face tightened again, though he was looking at his toweled arm instead of at Sirius. "They'll kill me if they figure out what I did. Not in the melodramatic way—literally kill me," he said, leaning his head back against the wall with another measured breath.

Not at all the answer Sirius had expected. Regulus was the last of an old line, related heavily to the Death Eater bigwigs, had a mother that could stop a dragon cold in its tracks, and for all of his idiotic choices, he wasn't particularly stupid either. He could understand getting in trouble for something he _hadn't_ done—Sirius had no delusions about what Death Eaters did, but could never wrap his mind around the image of someone as soft as his younger brother being able to do any of it. But something he _had_ done?

"Were you—trying to run?" It was possible he'd done it somewhere there was a rockery, or a lot of water, and slipped in the dark. That seemed fairly anticlimactic to him, but he supposed the idea of Regulus feeling he couldn't return home was the height of fear for him. Home was everything to him, above all else, as Sirius had long since bitterly learned. That even made sense by some Death Eater standards—you join, then you are one until you die. There's no running from it. That was the rule.

"Sort of…" Furrowing his brow a little, Regulus paused for a beat, then continued. "That's part of it."

"Are you in shock?" It was a perfectly legitimate question, given that even for Regulus, this was being obtuse. "I can take a wild stab at why you can't go to St. Mungo's, but you had to be desperate to want to talk to me. But you have, and I'm here, against all common sense. I can't help if you don't tell me what I'm supposed to help with. Kreacher could have gotten you a towel; Narcissa could have gotten you a Healer—unless you've done something so spectacular, you believe she'd dob you in? Because if it's that big, I think ought to know because this place won't be safe for long if that's the case. You did...something, then got wet and cut up by _rocks_. Were you up here? Did you get in a fight? Should I be expecting someone to come and try to finish it?"

Regulus shook his head with a little more certainty. "No fight… I don't think anyone knows I'm here. They oughtn't… I just—can't focus. I can't go back right now. I was supposed to attend a party welcoming us back from Hogwarts, but the thought of looking at everyone and pretending like it's all fine made me sick to my stomach." His expression pulled to a sharp point, his frame tensing again as he continued, "It isn't fine. Nothing about it is fine, and I don't want to do it anymore… but that is not exactly presented as an acceptable option."

It was probably wrong to feel relieved that Regulus was sick to his stomach by it, but it was all Sirius could think of in the moment. Reconciling the image of a Death Eater and his brother had been a struggle for half a year, and this was the first sign that he was still _him_. Just fucking useless at not trying to please everyone, which was nothing new at all. The results of which had led to a sopping mess on the floor of the holiday home, so cheers, Mum, excellent parenting as always. "Joining shouldn't have been a bloody option," Sirius said through gritted teeth but forced out a huff to try and calm himself in the moment. Just because no one had left the Death Eaters and lived didn't mean it was impossible. It just meant no one had been smart enough yet.

First thing was first: seeing if he was going to stick to the same story when he stopped sounding so damn scared. It was a possibility that he wouldn't, as much as Sirius loathed the thought of it. He couldn't drag the Order Healers into this on the off-chance this was a minor freak out that he'd calm down from. Luckily—or not so luckily—it wasn't his only option, assuming he didn't get hexed for trying it. He looked back at his brother, and his stomach lurched. He'd done a lousy job at protecting him lately; he'd had to for his own sanity, but a little hexing would be worth it if it meant that Regulus actually got it through his thick head that Death Eaters were very much not _fine_.

"You still like having secrets?" Sirius asked.

Regulus turned to look at him for a moment, paused, then nodded.

"I know somewhere safe to get help, but it has to stay a secret no matter what." That was going to be non-negotiable, no matter what happened from here on in. "You can handle that?"

Again, Regulus nodded, pressing his lips to a line.

Sirius reached over to take his shoulder, only to feel the instant recoil. He'd take offense if it was someone else—it was a common reaction among 'traitors'—but Regulus had always been a little on the jumpy side when it came to people in his personal space. Given that he looked like someone just dragged him from the Great Lake, cutting him a little slack seemed like the half-decent thing to do. It took only a second to see the familiar outline of the old, stone house and rockery. Maybe he should keep Regulus out of the way of those; wouldn't want this antagonism to become a habit. "If you're going to throw up, can you aim it away from me?"

"I'm not going to throw up," Regulus muttered, though he still looked pale enough to call that into question.

"I wouldn't bet on it." The slight petulence to the tone was pretty reassuring; he'd take a sulk over scared any day.

Before he could talk himself out of what was probably going to be a stupid idea, Sirius knocked on the front door. With any luck, either Ted or Andromeda would still be up, given that it had to be about midnight. They were old, but they weren't that old. Andromeda was the one person he could be reasonably sure wouldn't tattle on either of them. She wasn't going to appreciate him showing up without warning about any of this, especially around her daughter, but desperate times made strange bedfellows or whatever the saying was.

The door opened a crack to reveal a wand, rather than a person.

"Sorry, I know it's late."

Then he heard an Andromeda-shaped sigh before the chain on the other side was removed, and the door opened fully to reveal Andromeda in her housecoat."What have you done?"

"Just need to borrow your other half for a bit." Sirius glanced to Regulus, and more specifically, to his arm.

As he hoped she would, Andromeda followed his eyeline. She blinked twice, being as close to a flabbergasted reaction as she knew how to give, then took a step backwards from blocking the entry way. "I think you'd better come in. Keep your voices down, please."

Regulus was staring hard at the floor as they stepped inside, mouth pressed to such a tight line that it could have been mistaken for being sewn shut, all of a sudden. Keeping _his_ voice down wasn't going to be a problem, as per usual.

"Regulus?" Andromeda phrased it partway between getting his attention and perhaps questioning if that was who she was looking at. Sirius supposed six years was a long time not to see someone. "Go and sit down. Keeling over from injury is against our house rules."

There was no delay in responding, this time, as Regulus cut a quick line to the front room - hesitating again when he reached the nearest sofa.

Andromeda gave Sirius a questioning look, but he couldn't really explain it either. As much as he liked to call Regulus the little puppet, watching him behave like it made him feel more than a little uncomfortable.

Sirius watched him continue to hesitate, before giving a noise of frustration. "He doesn't want to get blood on your sofa."

To her credit, he did think the sudden look of alarm was for the fact he was bleeding and not for her sofa. "Grab one of the throws. He can sit on that if he he's so worried about my upholstery." Upstairs, something drew her attention. "I'll tell Ted to get his kit out, but there's going to be a conversation about this."

"Looking forward to it," Sirius muttered.

He scooped up one of the woven throws from the back of an armchair and considered throwing it in Regulus's direction. Then he remembered he was trying to keep a towel to stop himself from bleeding and probably didn't have much of a hand free to do anything as sophisticated as catching. He half strew it in front of Regulus instead. "Now can you sit down?"

Regulus nodded stiffly, accepting the throw and smoothing it over the sofa until it neatly covered the cushions from the floor up over the back. When at last he sat down, he tucked himself against the arm, leaning forward over his knees to stare at the carpet.

Ted Tonks could hardly be thought of as intimidating in any way, by Sirius's standards. He was soft-spoken, barely taller than his wife, and always seemed to be at ease in any situation. Sirius supposed a Healer needed that. No knowing what would come into St. Mungo's, or in this case, his own front room. He approached in what Sirius assumed were his nightclothes, but he also had a small bag that rattled with glass.

"Alright, Ted?" Sirius said, since one of them should remember their manners, and the situation was dire indeed when that person was him.

"Hullo," Ted said. "I think the wife wants a word with you."

"I think she wants a whole conversation," Sirius replied.

"Best not keep her waiting," Ted said. "You wouldn't want to be gawked at if you were getting fixed up, either."

Sirius looked at Regulus, clearly ready to try and vibrate himself through the floor into the Earth's core rather than deal with this situation, but Ted had a point. It can't be the first purist he's treated, and Andromeda's patience was likely to become limited very quickly. "I'll be back in a minute."

On the landing of the upper floor, Andromeda beckoned Sirius to come up to her. The fact that she was trying to be discreet meant she was probably going to give him a talk that amounted to 'what the hell is going on,' and Sirius didn't have nearly enough answers to give her. Still, he steeled himself and dived right in.

"I didn't know where else to take him," Sirius said, cutting off any question she may have began with. "He needs help, and I'm a dab hand with counter-curses, but he's in some kind of shock. He needed a real Healer."

"There are many Healers at home for him," Andromeda said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"A place he's adamant he can't go to at the minute," Sirius replied. "I don't know much more than you do. I got in to find his owl. He asked for help— _he_ asked for _help_ —so I went up to get him. He was at the summer house, in the dark, sopping wet, bleeding, and barely coherent. I didn't know what else I could do."

"The hospital?" Andromeda replied.

"If you don't know why I didn't do that, you at least _suspect_ why I didn't do that," Sirius half-mumbled. He knew he sounded a little sullen, but he couldn't help the feeling he was being grilled for some failing or other.

When he met her eye, Andromeda was regarding him sharply. "You do not bring a Death Eater into my house without talking to me, Sirius!" she hissed. "I don't care who they are."

Sirius nodded. "I won't."

"You do not have the authority to put my child in danger without my consent. Never again, do you understand me?" Her voice left no room for any answer other than yes, so of course, it was the one he gave. "You're quite sure he is?"

"I'm sure," Sirius replied. He had seen him with his own eyes the December before. "I'm also sure he doesn't want to be and has no idea what to do with that knowledge."

"Leaving is not generally an option," Andromeda said. She crossed her arms over her chest, her wand twiddling through her fingers in a nervous tick, then glanced downward as if she could see through the ceiling below. "I don't understand what would possess him to join in the first place!"

"We both know the answer to that one." Neither of them were about to bring her sister's name up first, so she simply glared at him for a long moment.

"You despise Death Eaters," she said.

Sirius agreed. "I do."

Andromeda pressed on. "You think they deserve everything they get for blindly following a lunatic."

"Or being sadistic pricks, yes," Sirius replied.

"Then why did you bring him here?" Andromeda asked. The unspoken addition of 'if you knew what he was, why didn't you contact the authorities' was as loud as if she'd decided to say it.

"If your point is 'I'm a hypocrite,' I already knew that." Defensiveness leaked into Sirius's voice without him meaning for it to. "Will you help anyway?"

Andromeda pressed her mouth into a thin line, then gave one small nod. "You're lucky I'm a soft touch. I don't suppose you have any sort of plan for what to do next?"

"I'm working on it," Sirius said. "I thought not letting him bleed out was a good start!"

"Then a good step after that is finding out what he's too afraid to go home to find," Andromeda replied, letting her arms drop once again. "Your mother is not a sedate woman. Sooner or later, I imagine she will notice she's missing a teenager, and then people will look for him."

"No one would look here," Sirius said. "People would think he'd rather be caught dead than here."

"Are you quite sure that is not still the case?" Andromeda pressed.

If he was honest with himself, no, he wasn't. But if Regulus truly felt sickened by the actions of the Death Eaters, if he was in fact finding some previously undiscovered fight in him, then shouldn't they at least try and help it? So Sirius didn't want his younger brother to lose his soul, literally or metaphorically. That didn't make him a bad person. Might make him a rubbish vigilante, but not a bad person.

"He's soft," Sirius replied, quietly. "He's always been soft. Infuriating as it is when he doesn't have my back with it, I don't think he truly believes any of the doctrine. Memorising it isn't the same as believing it. I can still recite half of it. I still fuck up sometimes, but I had a chance, and I figured my shit out."

"You didn't join the Death Eaters," Andromeda said, quietly.

"You think vigilantism will get me less arrested if I'm caught?" Sirius asked.

Andromeda rolled her eyes, then heaved an exaggerated sigh. "You're both idiotic. I reserve my judgement until I've spoken with him myself. My frame of reference was a terrified eleven-year-old on your mother's coat strings."

"He's still a terrified eleven-year-old on Mum's coat strings," Sirius replied, grimly. "He's just a bit taller."

* * *

When Sirius had exclaimed a need for secrecy, Regulus had expected his brother to apparate them to his flat, or perhaps to some friend or another in his merry band of vigilantes; yet as he sat frozen on Andromeda's sofa, Regulus felt as though the air had been kicked out of him again.

If Sirius wanted a secret, this was a guaranteed way to achieve it. Regulus had no intention of telling _anyone_ he had come here, intentionally or not.

His jaw was locked shut, eyes staring hard at the plush carpet beneath his feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a blonde stranger—Andromeda's muggleborn husband—setting down his bag of what was presumably healing supplies. Of course he was a Healer. The night had not been miserable enough yet. Regulus had heard once that muggle Healers mended cuts and gashes by stabbing you with sharp pins. The memory sent a prickle of anxiety over him, but the few things Andromeda's husband had pulled out of the bag appeared to be legitimate, and his wand was visible. That, at least, was a small mercy.

With a flick of the man's wand, the room lit up brightly. "You don't look any less peaky in the light," he declared quietly and crouched down in a frog-like bend in front of Regulus. "Do you feel dizzy or sick?"

Regulus furrowed his brow. He felt ill but wasn't ill—not in the way a Healer would mean. The stress had been suffocating for some time now, growing worse and worse since his discovery of the horcrux, but since that potion…

His stomach lurched horribly, his mouth pressing to a firmer line. In the moment, all Regulus had been able to think about was the horrible barrage of terror that the potion yanked forth and the sick feeling that overcame him, but he wasn't even sure what the potion was—whether there were any side effects beyond the immediate experience. The Dark Lord could have easily chosen a poison that would still kill you, even if the lake of inferi did not…

Panic fluttered in his chest, and Regulus took in slow breath, gave a slow release. Andromeda's Healer husband was still staring at him, so he steadied his voice to something more controlled when he answered: "I feel nauseous but not dizzy."

In return, Andromeda's husband frowned. He tapped his wand lightly on Regulus's hand, followed by blue and red wisps knitting together. "I want to check your core body temperature isn't dropping," he explained. "Have you brought anything up, or gagged as if you were going to?"

Crinkling his nose, Regulus nodded. Though there was not a soul in the world that he would feel comfortable or safe confiding such details to, that circumstances should require it to be this person felt particularly cruel. He was half-tempted to risk the possibility of a slow death from that potion, but instead, he steadied himself to speak.

"It was shortly after I ingested a potion of some sort… I don't know exactly what it was or how far-reaching the effects are, but… it was intended for harm, so I suppose that is worth noting," Regulus said to the carpet, his frame tense.

"That changes things a little bit." The Healer let out a slow, low-pitched whistle. He turned back against his bag before pulling out several smaller bottles. "As a precaution, a full flush out and replenishment sounds like a good idea. If there's still symptoms like skin upsets, nausea, dizziness, temperature changes, difficulty seeing, or respiratory problems in twenty-four hours, there'll need to be some tests run. Let's see your arm. It might needs cleaning out first."

Immediately, Regulus's mind shifted to the Dark Mark on the inside of his arm. He had cast a glamour charm to mask it before boarding the Hogwarts Express that morning, but it had faded some time ago; refreshing had not seemed important when he did not expect to come out of the cave again, but he couldn't very well do it now.

Keeping his inner arm pressed flat along his thigh, Regulus removed the towel to let Andromeda's husband examine the gash on the other side, trying to keep any trickling anxiety from twitching on his face.

"I think we'll get some murtlap on that." Promptly, the man dove back into the bag to retrieve a light blue liquid and some white dressing. He pressed it on lightly. "It'll sting at first, but tell me when it goes numb, and we'll get it wrapped up. Anything else I should know about? You're not allergic to anything?"

Silently, Regulus shook his head.

"Let me know if it hurts." He bathed the wrap in the solution, then placed it tentatively over the gash. "If you count to twenty, it should begin to go numb by then. I'll heat up the flush, but if you feel any burning, give a shout."

Steeling himself against the sting with nothing more than a neutral nod, Regulus slowly counted as feeling started to seep out of his arm. By the time he reached twenty, the tingling sensations had turned into the strange, phantom feeling that took place when numbness kicked in. Vaguely, he thought to himself that Andromeda's husband seemed to know what he was doing, at least; it might have annoyed him a little in another situation, but he could privately admit a measure of relief, even if that relief was stuck in his throat.

When Andromeda's husband returned, he had two glasses—one filled with an unpleasant-looking, viscous liquid while the other was clear. He set both of them down on the table before returning back to the sofa. He tapped the top of the dressing lightly. "Can you feel that?"

Regulus shook his head slightly.

"I'll wrap it then," the man replied, tapping the same dressing with his wand. Bandages conjured and wrapped themselves around the dressing tightly, which he tapped again and seemed satisfied with. "That just leaves the flushing out potion. It's a little disgusting, but it'd be worse cold, and there's water if you feel more sick from it."

Regulus watched as the glasses were brought over from the table. He did not doubt the appraisal: the potion looked, smelled, and sounded to be unpleasant, but this, too, was probably still better than the potential for a slow death by poison.

Such was the unfortunate standard for the night.

Accepting the first glass, Regulus twisted his face in mild disapproval and drank it down without further fuss. As he had been warned, it had a nasty taste, but it wasn't significantly worse than some other healing potions. The warmth went immediately to his stomach and did little for his lingering nausea. He drank the glass of water next, but he wasn't sure that did much to help, either.

"The bathroom is first door at the top of the stairs. You should go and clean off, get out of the wet clothes." Andromeda's husband gave him a couple of pats on his bandaged arm. "Discussions are better done in the morning when everyone's calmed down a bit."

Regulus was not convinced that it was the sort of discussion that became easy in any situation, but he nodded all the same. Without another word, he stood up, crossed the room, and disappeared up the stairs.

* * *

If Andromeda was going to respond, then she was clearly distracted by the appearance of her husband on the upstairs landing. They did what Sirius had decided must be a married people thing, where they had a conversation just by looking at each other, but after a beat, Ted shrugged lightly.

"So what's the verdict?" Sirius asked.

"I'm not sure," Ted replied. "At the very least, he's got something in his system that could be causing other symptoms, but since I don't know what it is, I'm giving him a flush for his system and treated what I can see."

"What kind of something?" Sirius pressed.

"I'm not entirely sure he knows," Ted said before opening up one of the closet spaces and placing his bag inside it.

"How can he not know?" Sirius scoffed. There was no way in hell Regulus would take something without knowing absolutely everything about it. Unless, he thought with a sudden lurch in his stomach, it wasn't exactly taken voluntarily. What had he said? That they'd kill him if they saw him? Did they try?

"You don't know what happened either," Andromeda reminded him. "The question right now is not what happened, but what should happen now."

"He's going to need another dose in the morning," Ted replied. "Do you believe he's safe to have here?"

Andromeda looked at him, because of course she did.

"I don't think he's dangerous to you," Sirius said, before answering what he suspected they truly wanted to know. "Or your daughter."

"Truthfully, I would like to speak to him myself." Andromeda sighed before shaking her head. "He'll get some rest, and we'll reconvene in the morning. Are you staying or coming back?"

"Staying," Sirius said, promptly. "Er, may need to use the floo for a minute though. Remus is going to wonder what's going on."

"Go home," Andromeda said. "If you need to fill in Remus, you should sleep in your own bed. Come back in the morning. I'll keep an eye on him until then."

Not at all keen on the idea, Sirius pressed. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure he'll be less trouble than you usually are," Andromeda replied. Sirius took offense to this; no one was more trouble than him, and it was with a deep sense of pride he maintained that. "I better go find him something to sleep in. He's sopping."

* * *

The guest room Regulus was directed to for the night was little more than a closet with a bed shoved in it. Still folded neatly on the pillow were the pyjamas that Andromeda's husband had offered. From where Regulus was curled up, they were in arm's reach, though he had yet to grab for them. By the time he was settling into the room, he had calmed enough to finish drying his robes with a spell, but they weren't particularly ideal for sleeping in, however nice the material might be. Part of him felt that he ought to reject the pyjamas on principle simply because he knew who they belonged to, yet the other part of him suspected that simply being in this house was crime enough. More than likely, being comfortable was not going to make his standing that much worse on the scale of offenses—at least as long as the offense was not advertised.

Regulus was not certain how long he had been staring at the pyjamas when he at last gave into temptation and put them on. From the pocket of his own robes, he removed the locket, slipping it over his neck and tucking it beneath the shirt. Most likely, no one on either side of the war knew the precise pile of clothing to snatch the horcrux from, but proximity was safer, without a doubt. Neatly, he folded his own clothes and settled them at the foot of the bed. Taking his pillow in hand, Regulus propped himself at the top end, which was flush to the wall beneath the window. The summer night was heartbreakingly clear without a smoggy London cloud to be seen.

Three times that night, exhaustion lulled him to sleep, propped as he was against the wall, but when Regulus closed his eyes, he saw the staggering jolt of dead bodies swarming forth to tug him under, felt their hands clawing at his neck and heard his mother's echoing shrieks. Each time, he jerked awake with a hammering heart.

There was not a fourth time, that night.

* * *

Regulus's head was nudged into the corner where, propped in part by the pillow in his arms when he heard what sounded like the jostle of furniture outside his room. He hated the way his chest seized, nerves beating quietly against his ribcage, but sluggishness dulled his reaction to a hovering hand over his wand. With a flickering second to reason it out, a visit by the Death Eaters was unlikely, given that the rest of the house was so quiet and undisturbed, and the sun was already rising. More than likely, the scuffle of an attack would involve more than a bumped table, but at the same time, he knew a scuffle was not always inevitable. With the right knowledge and preparation, once could sneak into a house and take out the residents without making a single sound of alarm - but perhaps more realistically, no one had any reason to think he was here.

Even so, his hand hovered still over the wand when the door creaked open to reveal—a little girl with wide, curious eyes.

"You're not Sirius," she said, as if this were some grand revelation.

Regulus blinked slowly and shook his head, hand subtly retracting from the wand. Andromeda had been pregnant when she left—Regulus had heard the adults say as much, so long ago—and this looked to be the child in question. Even without that context, her looks favoured her mother more so than her father, perhaps uncomfortably so, considering she was not on the tapestry at home. Everything in this house felt uncomfortable when he thought about the tapestry.

"He's…" Regulus hesitated for a beat, the words feeling sticky with disuse in his throat. "He's my brother."

"Oh, I don't have any brothers. Or sisters!" the girl exclaimed. She pulled the door open properly, now having decided it was fair game to do so. "Did you come to build forts too?"

Though it seemed like a bit of a leap as far as assumptions went, perhaps it was something Sirius did. Regulus felt a twinge in his chest at the thought, but it made sense that Sirius would feel so comfortable here. Regulus was the odd one out.

"I was not feeling very well," Regulus settled instead.

"You're sick?" Her eyes widened at the mere idea of it before she suddenly disappeared from view. Her footsteps echoed as she presumably ran down the hallway, and then back again. However, this time there was a large, purple stuffed animal of some kind in her arms. She came right up to the bed and thrust it out. "There, if you hug him extra tight, you'll feel better, and we can play forts."

How much simpler his life would be, were that true. Accepting the stuffed toy, Regulus turned it over in his hand, then gave it a solid look in the face. The expression was a bit funny, rather silly-looking for a...mouse? A dog? But even if the premise was ridiculous, he could feel the corner of his mouth quirking a little at the corner. "Does that work for you?"

"No!" the girl laughed, giving an odd sort of punctuation to her statement. "You're silly."

The childish contradiction was blatant, but he felt a flicker of tired amusement in spite of himself as he let his head rest against the wall. Though Regulus knew this halfblood child ought to make him remarkably uncomfortable—and perhaps in a less bizarre situation, she would have—of all the people he had interacted with since owling Sirius, she was without a doubt the most blameless, and the stress pounding in his head was bad enough without the guilt of mouthing off to a well-meaning child. He was a little surprised no one had told her to avoid him.

"Does it only work on adults, then?" he asked mildly, looking again at the purple creature's fading face, then turned the toy to look back at her.

"It only works when you really, really need it, and I don't," the girl replied. "I have my dad to help me when I get sick. Last time I broke my arm, he gave me _three_ stickers. Do you want to see my stickers?"

The chatter seemed to run together a little bit, but she was so delighted about it that Regulus couldn't bring himself to tell her no—even if he did not think there was anything particularly interesting about stickers (and even if the mention of her father made Regulus immensely uncomfortable, in turn). "Alright. Let's see them."

Outside in the hallway, there was a distinct sound of footsteps and shuffling about. The girl visibly shrunk. "Uh-oh. I gotta go. Bye!" With that, she suddenly ran out the door.

Regulus blinked slowly. Judging by those footsteps and the hasty retreat, perhaps someone had warned her not to talk to him, after all.

He didn't have to wait long to find out. After only a minute or so, the door was pushed open lightly and Andromeda looked in. She was still dressed in what was presumably night clothes, but she was carrying her wand. "Good morning," she said, politely. Then her eyeline dropped, and a brief look of confusion filtered across her face.

"This…" Regulus looked at the purple creature and put it on the bedside table. "This isn't mine," he said before clearing some of the awkwardness out of his throat. He had hoped to muster a bit more dignity with at least a change back into his own clothes before interacting with anyone over the age of six, but reality was not so kind.

Barely able to suppress a smile, Andromeda gave a slight nod. "I know. Snuffalump and I are old friends." She took a glance around the room. "I'm afraid the gene for irresistible curiosity has been passed along to my daughter. I apologise for the intrusion."

"It's alright," Regulus said, eyes flicking away as a fresh wave of discomfort washed up unbidden. Her mood seemed to be amicable enough, but it had been so long: She had left them to marry some muggle ( _a muggleborn who had tried to help last night_ —)

His mind focused then on the light press of metal against his chest; irresistible curiosity about the horcrux was what had gotten him into this mess in the first place, though it was probably a bit different.

"You should eat before taking the next potion," Andromeda seemed to decide. "I'm no house-elf, but no one's died from my cooking yet, and I don't intend for them to start now. We won't bite."

Privately, Regulus thought to himself that it wasn't the people within these walls that he necessarily expected to bite him, but he said nothing, instead granting a simple nod. She stepped out then, closing the door with a soft click, and he felt some of the stress starting to fade again. His entire body had drained itself of all motivation and energy, but he stirred himself to stand and change back into his robes from the day before and fold the pyjamas up in their place. Pausing a moment, he pulled the chain of the locket over his head again, then slipped it into his pocket. Clasping the locket tightly in his hand for a moment with a steadying breath, he nodded, more to urge himself on than anything else. When he again retracted his hand, he cast a quick sealing spell on the pocket to secure it within and tried to clear it from his mind for the moment. One problem at a time.

After washing up and ensuring he looked presentable for the morning—once again, something he would have preferred to manage prior to human contact—Regulus padded down the stairs to be greeted by the smell of breakfast. The sudden onset of hunger felt like a betrayal in itself, which he knew was a little ridiculous, even if it was prepared by someone he wasn't supposed to be talking to…

Peering in, he saw the three of them milling around; for a panicked moment, he thought about turning and walking back up the stairs, but Andromeda's daughter spotted him from the front room, so he supposed there wasn't much benefit in retreating now.

"You're here!" she bounded up, still carrying a bowl with some kind of multi-coloured cereal in it. "We can start building now."

"Nymphadora," Andromeda said in a warning tone. "Go sit down and finish your breakfast, then _ask_ before jumping all over him."

"I did ask," the girl protested.

"Did he say yes?" Andromeda prompted, flicking her wand as flour and milk began to mix together in the bowl.

"He didn't say no," she replied.

"That's not the same thing, and you know it," Andromeda said, before indicating the front room. "Go and sit with your dad. You can keep him awake before work."

The man looked at her with raised eyebrows. Andromeda mouthed something in return before whipping her wand to make one of the chairs at the small wooden table in the kitchen pull itself out. "Take a seat, and I'll attempt to keep you from getting accosted."

Regulus twisted a look back at the girl—Nymphadora—then settled in the chair. He thought he should probably say something to his cousin to break the awkward lull, but he hadn't seen her since the summer he turned eleven. He could not simply ask how she was—even small talk felt off when he oughtn't be at her house at all, but at the same time, she was offering him hospitality when she did not have to. The Aurors had not come in the night...

"Why don't we go check on your spider army?" Ted prompted. It only took a few moments to usher the little girl outside, and the door to close.

"We've got some cobwebs in the shed," Andromeda explained lightly. Pancakes flipped themselves before turning over on one side onto the table in front of them. "I realise I'm not your favourite person, which is quite all right. I've never been the lady Narcissa is, but I truly do not wish for you to come to harm. I have little doubt Sirius will grill you about this, that, and the other when he decides to show up, but between you and I, I do not believe you are the first person to wish to break the choice to follow. I don't enjoy having to ward my home against Bella, but I will, if it comes to that."

Dread turned in his stomach, and he nodded. "I realise you didn't ask to be involved in this, and… the situation is complicated, but I don't wish harm on any of you, either," he said—and however upsetting her departure still felt when he allowed himself to think about it too closely, he nonetheless meant the words.

"I believe you. Actions speak louder than words, and despite the obvious discomfort, you've been very polite. Of course, this has always been the case, but it's nice to see that is remains into adulthood." The teapot arrived steaming, and began to pour a very black tea into the awaiting cups. "I don't mind my own involvement. My daughter is, and always will be, my main concern. However, I do excel at complicated, and having some familiarity with the complexities involved with family, I'll help if I can."

"Thank you," Regulus said, looking down into the warm steam rising from his cup. "I don't quite know how to manage the situation yet… but thank you." ('For not calling the Aurors,' he nearly said, but it felt like an unspoken assumption that he was not yet ready to make blatant. Fortunately, she did not seem to be keen on it either.)

"By taking something to eat, taking the potions, and getting more rest." Andromeda pointed at him with her wand. "You look dreadful. Did you sleep at all?"

Regulus leveled a dry glance, thinking that her observation was a bit honest, but he shook his head with a decision to let it sit. "I couldn't settle," Regulus responded, which was not entirely untrue.

"You have a lot on your mind," Andromeda said. "The aftermath of big decisions made in the moment can often be disorienting at the best of times."

Regulus tipped his head a little. For months, he had researched and agonised over the horcrux, had prepared himself to steal it and to die for it, but perhaps the most jarring part of it all was that he hadn't died. Foolish though it seemed now, he had not let himself plan that far ahead… and the thought of going home was almost as nightmarish as the flashes of slick, swollen hands clawing at him when he shut his eyes. "I don't know that I would categorise the decision as strictly 'in the moment,' per se, but it was nonetheless disorienting." He lifted the tea to his lips for a sip.

"Monumental, then," Andromeda allowed instead. "Something shifts, and suddenly things are different. It can be difficult to find your equilibrium after that, so if you'd rather not do it on display, you don't have to sit here and do it in front of people."

Regulus turned another look towards her, this time holding that look a bit longer. It sounded like permission for solitude—an alluring temptation, if he was honest—though a night of solitude had done little to comfort or inform him of his next steps. He did not want to be around anyone, and he did not want to be alone, but he did not know what that meant, so he could not very well expect anyone else to know, either. "I appreciate that," he said instead with another sip of tea, if only to fill the moment to follow.

Andromeda merely nodded, leaning on her elbows on the counter space and holding the cup in her hand without any visible intention to drink from it. "As you wish. Do tell Dora 'no' though, or you'll end up building forts and watching her fall into things—or as she thinks of it, dance routines—until your brain dribbles out of your ears."

Regulus did not doubt it, energetic as the girl had already proven herself to be. She seemed an endless source of frantic distraction, if not 'relaxing' to be around. There would be no 'figuring out his situation in privacy' with her hovering about, and as unnerving as the quiet had felt last night, figuring out his situation was of high priority… "Noted."

"It's only because you're new. She'll lose interest once Sirius is here. He's sporadic enough she still finds it exciting. Must have been around February, last time." Andromeda took a long drink of her tea. "My condolences, I heard about your father."

Regulus was surprised by the stinging jab that jutted up under his skin. He did not precisely want a child hanging off of him, talking incessantly and knocking things over, and it was naive to think himself anything more than a novelty, but being slotted up against Sirius was as familiar as it was irritating. In such a setting, Regulus did not much like his standing. Logically, he knew it oughtn't be an insult that the child of a blood traitor and a muggle(born) would prefer the traitor cousin who still had the temperment of a six-year-old himself sometimes, but it strangely still felt like one.

His face went a little stony, then, and it was only partially because he hated thinking about his father's death almost as much. In silent response, he sipped his tea.

Andromeda straightened, giving him a curious look. "Of all of the things I thought you may find offense in, Sirius getting on better with a six-year-old was not what I expected to do it. My apologies; I didn't consider you might want her attention. Even for her special abilities, she's very vibrant and loud. It can add to being overwhelming."

"I'm not offended, and I don't want her attention," Regulus clipped, feeling his mood sharpen against the neutrality he had felt just a moment before. On this side of the war, people would always prefer Sirius. Of course they would. On Regulus's own side of the war, people had preferred him by far—but as it was, Regulus did not have a side anymore. No Death Eater had survived defection, but even if one did, what was it meant to look like? Prison? Ostracization? Distrust? Ambivalence? That thought cut deeper still.

"If you like," Andromeda said, in a measured tone. The door knocked in two short bursts before she could add anything to that. "Ready?"

Regulus flicked a glance at the door—with Sirius on the other side, most likely—and felt his insides twist again. Sirius had never knocked for him, but if it wasn't Sirius, it wasn't anyone else Regulus wanted to see, either. Looking back to his tea, he carved his face into an even expression and a stone-still tone. "I'm actually rather tired. Thank you for the tea."

Pushing the cup a few inches away, he stood and stepped back from the table without meeting her eyes or waiting for a response. Imagining the room upstairs, he focused his thoughts and apparated from the kitchen—a rude gesture, he knew, but it felt significantly worse to imagine the door opening before he was up the stairs. With a sigh, he collapsed on the bed, scooting so that his back was against the bordering wall.

Surrounded by silence again, his eyes fell on the purple creature still sitting on his bedside table. With a tightening face, he turned over, tucking his forehead against the wall instead and trying not to think about anything.

* * *

"The fact you always make me knock..." Sirius trailed off in absolute disgust as Andromeda stepped back from the door.

"It could be anyone," Andromeda countered lightly.

"Death Eaters don't knock," Sirius grumbled. He turned back towards the outside garden, where Canopus was currently perching. "Come on. I'm sure Regulus wants to know where you've gotten to."

When Sirius had returned home under protest, he'd taken the owl with him. His brother could use a break from the responsibilities that came with communicating with anyone he was related to. Besides, it was funny to see he and Hootie having their own little reunion. It was a pleasant distraction. Remus had instantly wanted to know what was happening, and Sirius had no clue what was happening. He'd promised a better explanation today, but Merlin only knew if he'd get one here. Thankfully, Remus was still asleep when he'd left.

"I think he's not feeling very social," Andromeda replied, reaching for a piece of what looked like pancake to offer the owl. "I think I upset him."

"He's never social; it's not you," Sirius replied.

"He was being very pleasant until I assumed he didn't want to be around Nymphadora. I believe he took some offense to the idea." Andromeda gave the owl a slight stroke on the head. "I truly did not consider he might like being around her."

"He's thrown out the rule book at the minute, so who knows what he feels?" Sirius replied. "I have to talk to him regardless."

"If you're going up, take the clear potion from the side," Andromeda asked, pointing to it. "He was in such a hurry to run that I don't believe he took any of it."

"I usually have that effect on him," Sirius replied grimly, but he did what he was told and collected the potion before jogging up the stairs. He gave the guest room door a couple of sharp knocks, if only in case he was getting changed or something. "You've got a visitor."

Silence.

"Fine, if you're going to be stubborn." Sirius opened the door and let the owl flutter in to perch. He went to try and squeeze himself past the bed (Andromeda really needed to charm this room for everything to be a better fit inside it) before giving up on that. He toed his shoes off, instead, and stepped on the bed to climb over to the bedside table where he deposited the potion. Regulus visibly cringed at the jostle but said nothing. "You're meant to drink that," he added as he hopped off the bed and onto the ground with a thud.

After a beat, Regulus twisted to shoot a mildly disgruntled look before laying his head back down, not bothering to close his eyes.

"What a pleasant young man, so polite and well-mannered," Sirius exclaimed in a bright falsetto, which if you asked him, was not a terrible impression of at least three-quarters of Andromeda's mother's social circle. "It's a good thing half of the old biddies don't really know you, or they'd know you're worse than I am for being sullen when something gets on your goat. Still, I'll take sulking and grumpy over panic any day. You feeling better?"

Regulus crinkled his nose but must have decided it wasn't worth arguing the point. "I suppose," he said to the wall.

"Budge up, then. It's not a sick bed if you're not sick." Sirius sat down on the side of the bed, crossing his legs under him. "You still look like shit. You could pack the bags under your eyes for a week in Paris and still have clothes to spare. Did you sleep last night, or can you still not turn your brain off?"

Regulus paused a moment before tucking up to make room. "The latter."

"Any closer to knowing what you want to do?" Sirius asked. "Or was this an obsessive going over everything and how terrible it is kind of thing?"

Pushing up to sit, now, Regulus made a face. "Well, nothing has changed since last night; that much is certain."

"You're not in a blind panic; that's changed." Sirius shrugged. "Or if you are, you're hiding it really well. Still decided that playing whipping boy for a soulless monster isn't as much fun as advertised?"

"I would not have phrased it that way," Regulus began dryly, "but essentially, yes."

Sirius clicked his tongue against his teeth audibly. "Gonna tell Mum that?"

"I'm still trying to figure that part out." Regulus huffed out a sigh, leaning back against the wall.

"No use going to Grandfather. I think he's already proven he's useless when it comes to this by not taking any sort of stand for his own kid." Not that Sirius had really expected him to. He was a severe man, but for all of his intimidating calm, he toed the party line and always had. If Regulus had managed to have this little realisation three years ago, this could have worked out a lot more cleanly, but since when did they ever do anything the easy way? Thinking of anyone his brother could talk to about it, the list dwindled swiftly. Their father would have been first choice, but gee thanks, Death Eaters, your aim as always is fucking fantastic. Cygnus was useless too; he had too much skin in the game with Bellatrix. Half the older generations were batty as they come and all. "Could try Lu. It's as close to talking to Dad as possible."

Regulus tipped a slight nod, his expression growing a little more thoughtful. "Perhaps… though it puts her in danger to even hint at it."

Sirius had to scoff at the idea. "She's more taciturn than you in a shirty mood. Unless she chooses to tell someone, who would know?"

Regulus lifted a shoulder.

"You just illustrated my point," Sirius replied dryly. "Look, I think you did something incredibly stupid, but what you choose to do now, afterwards, it can matter just as much. You don't know if you're going to go home yet. You don't know what the consequences are going to be, so how can you make a decision without getting the opinion of someone who might know? That's not how you do things. You like to know your options."

"It's not that I don't want options—I just—didn't expect to need options," he said a little tightly, rubbing his hands over his face.

That didn't make any sense. Everyone knows you can't just up and leave. "What were you expecting?"

Shaking his head, Regulus furrowed his expression. "Nevermind. It doesn't matter."

"It must matter to you, or you wouldn't risk losing your life for it." Whether it be the literal threat of Death Eaters attempting to end his life for being a deserter, or even losing a family he's always grasped on to more tightly than anything or anyone else, it's still losing a life. "You must know I don't want that for you, otherwise you wouldn't have owled me. You could have just shown up. Remus isn't a prick, he'd have helped."

For a moment, Regulus seems to snap out of whatever he was agonising about to shoot a mildly incredulous look. "Shown up? How? I don't even know where you live."

Sirius looked at him for a long moment, then laughed. "I don't know why that's funny," he admitted, only that it was. It was completely ridiculous. How would Regulus know? He'd bought the flat only a year ago, and since then, he'd seen his brother only in passing or on two very intense and dramatic occasions that didn't seem appropriate times to hand over a change of address card. He turned around, rummaging for a scrap of parchment in the bedside drawer that smelt a little like antiseptic and old cupboards, then scribbled an address down. "There."

Regulus looked at the paper for a moment before furrowing his brow. "Camden? That's closer to home than I expected."

"Yeah, you could probably have walked it. I'm surprised you didn't splinch yourself." It was tempting to tell him James had said almost the exact same thing, but as much fun as it would be to watch his feathers ruffle, it'd probably be detrimental to any actual conversation. "I couldn't keep Uncle's house in Cheshire. For one, it was huge, the upkeep would have been insane, and I'm one person. I don't need much. For another, it's the arse end of nowhere. In the country, no one can hear you scream—even if you're only screaming about how boring it is."

"I suppose." After staring at the paper for a moment longer, Regulus picked up his wand and tapped it on what looked like a sealed up pocket on his robes; after slipping the paper inside, he tapped it closed again and set down the wand.

"Have you been to Grimmauld Place yet?" Sirius asked, as it occurred to him that school had only just broken up. "I don't think And's about to kick you out or anything; I'm just wondering if I should expect to be able to hear Mum go ballistic from the flat."

Regulus furrowed his brow, twisting his mouth downward for a flickering moment before he responded: "Briefly—to drop off Canopus and my luggage from the train."

"That buys some time," Sirius admitted. "Whatever heinous—and true—things I think of her, she's got bigger balls on her than anyone else in the family. If you somehow manage to convince her he's a nutter and you're done, and that that's a good thing, I don't think anyone could say anything without causing a familial civil war." He stopped a beat, then continued without trying to think too much about what he was saying. "Assuming you do want to see her or go back there, and that's not part of what you were running from."

"They are relying on me," Regulus said with a frown, as if that was an answer. "Perhaps some will understand, perhaps not, but I realise certain individuals are bound to… have more difficulty with that distinction than others…"

"Homicidal difficulty," Sirius replied, bitterly. "They're relying on you to knock some girl up, not kill people. They need to get that through their thick skulls before it gets you dead, arrested, or worse."

"I know," Regulus said quietly, resting his head back against the wall.

"You didn't before." Before, the family word was sacrosanct no matter what. "What's changed?"

A pensive furrow pulled at Regulus's brow as he huffed a slow sigh. "It isn't just one thing. The whole situation has just been escalating and escalating, and it feels awful. I know it probably sounds stupid, but truthfully, I hoped this would be over by now…" He shook his head. "Then after what happened with our father, it's obvious that there has been no visible accountability for careless treatment. Setting off explosions without even checking for collateral damage, then carrying on like nothing…" Regulus pinched his expression. "The Dark Lord is just using us, and it's infuriating. He has been using us the whole time."

"That was stupid. The only way it's over is that either he dies or everyone willing to fight him is gone. I'm still here, more or less." Sirius gestured to himself. "Not as stupid as the rest of them who sign up knowing the truth. Or worse, don't accept it. I'm no help there. I couldn't convince anyone three years ago, so I think I'm useless when it comes up to convincing strategies."

"You are. Insulting people in the same breath is off-putting." Regulus flicked a glance over at him.

"It was just pissing me off by that point," Sirius admitted uncomfortably. "I wonder who they'll blame your brainwashing on."

"You, probably." Regulus lifted his brow, though his expression was distant. "Ironic, I suppose, when we've barely spoken, but the alternative may well be some assumption that we're all traitors waiting to happen, and that's not an implication the rest of the family will like, I don't think."

Sirius cackled at the thought. "I'm not even there, and I'm still getting blamed for shit. Amazing. As if it's not their own fault you're the only one with common sense. Throwing in with a guy who calls himself a Dark Lord. Historically, when has that ever gone well?"

Pressing his lips to a line again, Regulus nodded.

"They can survive without you for a bit. Figure out what you want to do. I can tell that you just deciding when you walk in goes badly." Sirius glanced at what looked a lot like one of Dora's toys. "Hang out with your friend?"

Regulus's face went a little stonier. "It's not mine."

"Of course not. It's not green or silver," Sirius replied, lightly. He reached for the toy, trying to figure out what the hell it was supposed to be. "I'm a little put out. I've seen her almost seven times, and Dora's never given me a toy before."

Though he held his expression in place, Regulus flicked a wordless glance over at him.

This attitude was going to have to get addressed if he was going to get on like this the whole time. "I know you're uncomfortable here, but it is somewhere no one will look while you get your head together. Ted is a good Healer, and will make sure you're alright. And...I was angry that she left too, but now..." Sirius trailed off for a minute. "She put her child before herself. I can't be angry at her for that. It's how it should be. Parents take care of their children and fucking destroy that which tries to hurt them. If I could be sure Mum would do the same, I'd tell you should go home because you'd be safe there. But you're not, and I want you to be. I may not be your brother to you anymore, but you're still mine."

Meeting his eyes, Regulus held the look for a moment before flicking his eyes forward, not seeming to look at anything in particular. "Right." With a subtle shift, he crossed his arms, hands tucking into the sleeves.

"Don't be a prick," Sirius mumbled, irritably. "This is the second time this year you've decided to scare me half to death. I don't fancy a third."

"It's just that the last time you told me you were going to assist in fixing a situation, you leapt out a window without saying anything and never came back, leaving me to deal with the compounded fallout." Thumbing at the hem of his sleeve, Regulus took a bracing breath and added, "I appreciate that you responded last night—I realise you did not have to—but you were downright eager to replace me with the new Gryffindor model, so pardon my skepticism."

Recoiling as if the words had been a slap, Sirius shook his head slightly. "That's not what happened." That _wasn't_ what happened, none of it. For a start, he did not jump out a window. As many times as he'd said he'd rather throw himself out one than deal with their mother, he'd yet to ever actually do it. He _climbed_ down. He'd been ready to try and calm down, to deal with their parents rationally, but they were as usual all about honour and duty and not giving a shit, so what other choice did he have? He couldn't stay.

For all that he knew that, it didn't mean he didn't feel guilty about leaving Regulus there by himself. He was a flincher, always had been, and he wasn't going to be able to stand his ground. Sirius had known this and left him to do it anyway for the sake of his own sanity. He'd just never imagined that their precious, flourishing younger son wouldn't be protected from doing something as life-endingly idiotic as _joining the Death Eaters_. "You were too young to understand, and you're not exactly handling the pressure any better than I did. It's all a load of shit that none of us should have had to go through, and then you add Voldemort treating it like he can fix the mess by wiping out quarter of the magical population and anyone else who happens to be in the vicinity for that matter. If you believe nothing else, believe I want to see him in pieces for what he's doing."

Slowly nodding, Regulus kept his eyes fixed forward, though his mouth had thinned to a tight line. "I do, too."

If nothing else, it was a start. It was something he could work with. "Better gear up for the fight then, baby brother. They're going to think you're nuts, or sick, or having a breakdown, and they'll try to stop to you. It's why Lucretia is your best bet; she may believe you. They didn't call it that, but they murdered her baby brother. If it were me, I'd be out for blood."

Again, Regulus met his eyes, but some of the angry edge had smoothed to determination in his face when he nodded. "I know they are going to try."

"Hence hiding out until you can figure out how to tell them no?" Sirius asked.

"There is more to this situation than just 'telling them no,'" Regulus said, a bit defensively.

"Saying no is plenty complicated," Sirius said, forcing a shrug. "Don't want to end up like me, do you?"

Leveling a look, Regulus furrowed his brow. "I never said that it wasn't complicated."

It wasn't that complicated. If it worked, Regulus would bow out, and the two of them would go back to being people who occasionally saw each other in random, awkward ,and life would resume. "I didn't ask for it to be," Sirius said, sullenly. "What did you take last night?"

"A system flush; you brought the other half up here, remember?" Regulus answered, tipping his head towards the glass that was still sitting untouched on the bedside table.

Sirius glared back him. "The reason you needed to have a system flush, and the reason you had a worried Healer."

This time, Regulus lifted his shoulder in a small shrug, but his entire frame tensed once he had settled again. "I don't know what it was called."

"You took something you didn't know everything about?" Sirius almost added a question of whether he ought to be checking him for polyjuice. "Voluntarily?"

"I didn't _want_ to take it, if that is what you're asking, but it was necessary." Regulus's hands twisted tighter in his sleeve. "I don't really want to talk about it."

"Then you should take that," Sirius pointed to the other potion, "and go to sleep for real. Do you need anything? Clothes or something?"

"I suppose." Regulus picked up the glass, but he did not look very pleased about it.

If he ever heard the words 'I suppose' again, it'd be too bloody soon. "I'm going to need more than that. You suppose you need something? You suppose you should sleep?"

"It applied to all of the statements," Regulus responded. Lifting the potion, he drank the dose in one swoop, face twitching a little as he swallowed but making no other comment.

"I really want to thump you sometimes," Sirius grumbled. "Instead, I'm going to go see if I have anything small enough. I'll drop it downstairs so I don't wake you."

"Alright." Regulus crinkled his nose a little and set the glass down, pausing a beat. With a twinge of discomfort, he added:: "Thank you... Not for the thumping comment, but for the clothes. And for coming last night instead of just calling the Aurors."

"Why do you think I'm calling Aurors?" Sirius asked, climbing up onto his knees to clamber back off the bed. "I tried in December, remember? I couldn't do it then; you're crazy if you think I could do it now. We clean our own messes; the Ministry's useless."

Tipping a solemn nod, Regulus responded, "That is true."

"You were trying to stop me in that fight, not hurt me. The whole thing makes you sick. Knowing all of this, why, if anyone, would I call them on you? They can't even arrest Bella, and she kicked my head in." With a sudden flush of embarrassment, Sirius realised what he'd said. Like hell was he ever going to admit to being bested by that raging cow. "Never repeat that," he added, mortified.

"Of course not," Regulus said, though his tone might have lightened a little. "I'm rather good at keeping secrets when I put my mind to it."

* * *

 **Additional Author's Notes**

* * *

Because one Regulus Lives AU is not enough for the two of us, here is another, working off the premise of Regulus staying in the UK upon surviving the cave and continuing the First War fight.

For those who are reading our Renascentia-verse AU, the characterizations are consistent across the two 'verses (just much younger and even less mature), and we will be using some of the backstory elements that have been established in the Renascentia companion series, but other elements are specifically being set aside to allow this version to go in a different direction and develop it's own story. It also has a wider cast to allow for the people who are alive at this time. We don't want to tell the same story twice, after all!

If you are interested in reading some of the shared backstory, you can find them listed below. These are not necessary to understand this story, though occasionally the events within them will get mentioned i.e. the circumstances of Orion's death. They may come up in detail within the story as well, but if you'd like a head start, these are stories which are relevant.

- **putting out the fire (with gasoline)** \- Sirius runs away  
- **my past has tasted bitter for years now (so i wield an iron fist)** \- Sirius learns Regulus is a Death Eater  
- **winter lives in my bones (it's all i've ever known)** \- Learning of and dealing with their father's death

The first war was a bit of a mess, by our interpretation, but we're looking forward to exploring this take on it, too!

 **Applicable prompts from the lists at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments) - only noted for this first chapter:**

Insane House Challenge \- 611. (creature) Inferi  
365 Day Challenge \- 169. (job) Healer  
Gris-Gris Bags \- (object) Pillow  
Fortnightly Challenges, World Mental Health Day \- 3. Write about hallucinating  
Fortnightly Challenges, Halloween at Hogwarts \- 1. Write about being attacked by a magical creature/being  
Autumn Funfair, Apple Bobbing \- 7. (emotion) Scared  
Writing Club, Character Appreciation, Regulus Black \- 10. (setting) Cave [Bonus for using Regulus in story]  
Writing Club, Cookie's Crafty Corner, House Decor, Gravestones \- 8. Write about a character that dies in canon [Bonus]  
Writing Club, Book Club, "We Are All Completely Fine", Dr. Sayer \- 1. (word) Safe, (trait) Professional, (word) Understand, (plot point) Being unable to sleep  
Writing Club, Showtime, Devil's Carnival 1&2, 666 \- 3. (word) Consequence  
Writing Club, Amber's Attic, Martyrs \- 11. (theme) Revenge [Bonus]  
Writing Club, Lyric Alley, "Creep" \- 2. Couldn't look you in the eye  
Writing Club, Ami's Audio Admirations, Halloween Disco DJ Set, Demons \- 7. Write about someone suffering with a mental health ailment (anxiety/PTSD) [Bonus]  
Writing Club, Lo's Lowdown, Character Based Prompts, Dean Winchester \- 2. Write about an older sibling  
Autumn Seasonal Challenges, Days of the Year, Mouldy Cheese Day \- Write about someone tasting something disgusting  
Autumn Seasonal Challenges, Autumn Prompts \- (theme) Change  
Autumn Seasonal Challenges, Air Element, Elemental Characteristic \- Write about someone intelligent  
Autumn Seasonal Challenges, Audrey's Dessert Challenge, Sponge Flavours, Lemon \- (character) Nymphadora Tonks  
Autumn Seasonal Challenges, Ravenclaw Prompts \- (trait) Intelligent  
Autumn Seasonal Challenges, Autumn Astronomy Prompts, Leonids Meteor Shower \- (word) Frozen

Word Count \- 15,381 (halved is 7,691)


	2. On the Other Side of the Fence

**Chapter 2: On the Other Side of the Fence**

* * *

Slipping back into the flat was easier than slipping out of Andromeda's. She was probably going to be angry, but she was also going to ask questions, and Sirius didn't have nearly enough answers yet. He was going to get it in the neck from Remus. Sirius's patience was reaching the end of its rope as it was, and he didn't want to take that out on either of them. He'd had every intention of going straight into the giant dresser by the door and seeing what he could find, but finding the flat empty other than his owl meant he was able to flop down on the bed and not move for a few minutes.

What was supposed to be a few minutes.

It could have been a noise or the shift of the bed that woke him up, but Sirius had always been a light sleeper. He could sleep anywhere, but the payoff seemed to be that it was never for long. Excellent for mischief, so he didn't complain about it. He knew it wasn't Remus before he'd even opened his eyes. There was only one person who ever got that close without waking him up. Even if someone had miraculously managed to get into his subconscious enough to manage that, one point amongst the other weird coupley things that had started happening when James and Lily moved in together was that James now always seemed to smell vaguely of Lily's perfume.

"Was I tattled on?" Sirius said, opening one eye to look at him.

As expected, there was James, mucking about with the overspill on his desk. At least, he assumed the desk was still under there. It had been at one point. "You don't look like you're dying," James said.

Forcing himself up on his elbows, Sirius made an incredulous noise. "Moony said I was dying, and he sent for you? He could've at least sent for your wife. I don't want your ugly mug to be the last thing I see."

"He said you pissed off last night, wouldn't tell him where you'd gone, and you weren't in bed when he got up." James picked up one of the small Quidditch player toys; Sirius had no idea where he'd accumulated such a thing. "It sounds like life and death to me."

"So he sent for reinforcements?" Sirius felt a little slighted by that, even though it was probably the smartest move if Remus had wanted answers. James could tell bullshit a mile away, especially with him. "I told him I'd talk to him."

"Talk to him, then." James shrugged. "You have something against talking to me?"

"No," Sirius groaned. In for a knut, in for a galleon, he supposed. "Canopus showed up last night, you know-"

"I know the baby Black's owl," James cut him off.

"I had to see what was what," Sirius said, trying to keep the defensiveness out of his tone. "Anyway, I showed up, and he's half-dead, bleeding on the floor, barely stringing two words together."

"You went off to meet a Death Eater by yourself?" James asked. "You'd deck me if I did that."

"I went to see Regulus, and the day I can't take him, I deserve to get the floor wiped with me," Sirius scoffed.

"You should have owled me," James grumbled. "What did the baby want?"

"Out."

"As in really out?" Even if Sirius himself was skeptical, it still stung to hear it reflected back in his best mate's voice. "It's not some bizarre way to torture you?"

"Not his style." Sirius felt confident in that, if nothing else. Regulus ignored people; he didn't play mind games with them.

"So what happened?" James asked, taking a glance around the room. "I know he's small, but I don't think he'd fit anywhere in here that I can't see him."

"He was too messed up," Sirius replied.

"You take him to St. Mungo's?" James asked.

"Oh yes, I can see that going down very well when my dearest mother shows up." Sirius rolled his eyes. "I took him to Ted."

"You took a baby Death Eater to a muggle-born?" James's tone said it all: _That was stupid._ "You could have called Benjy."

"And out an Order Healer?" Sirius said with more than a touch of defensiveness slipping in. "He already knew about Ted. It was less dangerous."

"You don't know that it wasn't an Order member defending themselves that made him end up bleeding out all over the floor," James said, sharply. It was a thought that had been lurking in the back of Sirius's head more than he wanted to admit, but he didn't want to believe that. "Or the Ministry. Frank'd have told you, wouldn't he? If there'd been something. You should have owled."

"No Order member would have forced poison into him," Sirius snapped. "But he was trying to leave, so the Death Eaters sure as hell would."

James did the jaw click thing. "Is that what happened? They try and kill him?"

"I don't know!" Sirius moved down to the end of the bed, throwing his hands up in sheer frustration. "Ted said whatever he ingested, it was enough he was flipping out about it in a Ted kind of way. He didn't take it voluntarily, and he just said after what he did, they were going to kill him, so it doesn't take much to put two and two together. He still looks like shit, or I'd have pressed."

"What'd he do?" James sat down on the end of the bed with a flop that rippled through the bed.

"I don't know. I thought try to leave, but he said it was making him sick to his stomach, so I'm guessing he got in too deep, and they told him to hurt someone, and he couldn't do it." Sirius huffed loudly. "You know what he's like; he'd cry if he had to kill a spider."

"Terrible Death Eater material," James commented.

"Best compliment you've ever given him." Sirius flashed him a weak smile. "I left him with Andromeda. She can handle Bellatrix, she can handle a neurotic, sulking kid who's just realised all this Death Eater stuff is total crap."

"You know this is exactly the kind of stuff we're supposed to go to McGonagall over." James bashed his shoulder hard. "Alright, you want to help him try and find his backbone—if he has one—I'm game. Is he going to be able to stand up to the Death Eaters and tell them to piss off without you holding his hand?"

"He'll be fine with the Death Eaters." He was too angry with them to be faking that. "He can stand up to a bunch of mass murderers, sadists, and dark creatures if they've pissed him off that much. That's not what I'm worried about. I'm worried about him facing something much worse than that."

To his credit, James didn't miss a beat. "Your mum?"

"Mum."

James gave a low whistle. "I think I'd rather have Voldemort. He's not likely burst my ear drums."

"I don't know what I want to do yet," Sirius said, honestly. "But can you just trust me on this?"

James smacked him on the leg. "Yeah, alright. I'm still going to make sure there were no baby Death Eaters involved in anything last night."

Sirius nodded, He should probably know just in case he did have it all wrong, but he didn't think so. "What about McGonagall?"

"I can give you a couple of days, see what's what," James said, tone serious. "But the second you know what's happening, I'm expecting to see your owl at the window. We go from there?"

Sirius nodded. It was more than he had a right to ask for. It was hypocrisy of the highest order, but he couldn't in his bones believe that his brother had done anything all that terrible in his little Death Eater stint. The first terrible thing probably came up last night, and he bolted. Now he'd have to deal with the giant mess in its wake, where he'd have to convince half the family that the Death Eaters were all useless pawns in someone else's game or face losing them. He had a horrible feeling that being left to die on the floor at Iago might have been Regulus's preferred option if the alternative was a matching scorch mark.

* * *

No one else came to knock at his door after Sirius left for the morning, leading Regulus to suspect that his cousin had told her daughter to avoid his room (and was actually monitoring it, at the moment), and that the muggle(-born) Healer that she'd married must have already left for St. Mungo's.

Sirius's assertions had lingered for some time after his departure, though they were more a reiteration of his plaguing thoughts than they were a revelation. Of the living family members remaining in the House of Black, Aunt Lucretia was, most likely, the best chance at a calm and collected response… specifically a calm and collected response that would not instruct him to lift his chin and make the best of it. Months later, Regulus had still been unable to reconcile the contradictions his father's death had brought about. Orion Black, of all people, had been collateral damage from the carelessness of one of his comrades—a strike on Diagon, which ought to have been simple enough to check the surrounding area before setting off an indiscriminate _blast_ —

—But life had carried on quietly. There had been a distinct lack of outrage within his family, and the realisation that no one was going to say anything at all was deeply unsettling. Perhaps they would not speak against the Cause in his presence, but when he had watched his grandfather, his father's own father, speak unflinchingly at the funeral without a single hint at the hypocrisy of it all, not a single finger pointed…

If they would not speak up for his father, Regulus could not feel so certain they would speak up for him, either, last of the line or not. It made no sense to him when their family was meant to be paramount; perhaps not as individuals, he knew that much, but as parts of the whole, at least, and he could not determine where the line was drawn that made one worth protecting. That, more so than the Dark Lord's ire, made his skin crawl.

Uncharming his pocket and reaching inside to pull out the locket, Regulus let out a heavy sigh. With a frown, he turned it over in his fingers, letting the heavy chain drape between his fingers. Though it would be difficult to find a private space that was both secure and unlikely to leave evidence of damage, he did not wish to delay in the horcrux's destruction. Unlikely though it was that Regulus would change his mind on the matter, he was less certain that he could indefinitely dodge the Death Eater collective. Whether they would kill him, take the locket, or both, he did not want to risk leaving it intact when the restored mortality of the Dark Lord was on the line.

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Regulus rubbed at his neck—bruised, now, by the feel of it—then dropped the locket onto the carpeted floor. After slipping on his shoes, he stood up and situated his heel on the gemmed 'S,' lifted his foot, and smashed it back down as hard as he could. Slanting his foot to the side to peek at the state of the locket, he was disappointed to see that the stomp had achieved no affect. When he attempted it again with no luck, he soured his expression and picked it back up off the floor. Not even a dislodging of any of the stones embedded in the metal. He knew he couldn't keep at it, lest Andromeda come ask why he was stomping about, but there had to be some way to break it.

When he tried to unlatch the locket, Regulus found that it still wouldn't open—jammed, perhaps, though it seems an odd hinge to jam.

Any further attempts to destroy the locket inside of the house were likely to cause damage. Looking out the window, Regulus scanned for any private, hidden spaces to tuck away in, but he could see Andromeda and her daughter were out there, now.

Sticking the locket in his pocket again and keeping his hand clasped around it, Regulus peeked out into the hallway. At the end, he spotted the attic latch was open, and a wooden ladder was dropped down. He had not seen it the night before, but he had not seen very much at all, eager as he'd been to disappear into the bedroom. Though he did not make a point to creep in other people's attics, it had the benefit of isolation and the likelihood that no one would be bothering him for some time.

Closing the door behind himself with a soft click, Regulus walked down the hallway and up into the attic. It was dark and dusty, as could be expected, shaped like a triangular tunnel with various storage items lined at the bottom corners and an open space leading down the middle of the space.

First, he tried to make the locket hover, but it seemed to have some anti-hover charm on it, perhaps to avoid lifting it out of the basin without touching the potion. Annoying for his purposes but not surprising. He could not use anything fire-based, lest he accidentally set the whole place aflame, but after placing the locket back on the floor, he started with a severing charm, this time, with no luck. Holding the locket on its side, he then tried to specifically server the fused latch, but the spell did nothing. He tried a deterioration curse with no reaction, then a blasting curse that just broke a hole through the floor. The locket felt straight through, but when he went to look in the room below, the locket was still gleaming without a scratch.

With a huff, he mended the plastered ceiling from below, then went back up to the attic to mend the wooden side. Mild annoyance prickled as he admitted to himself that there probably wasn't a great place on this property to destroy it with dangerous spells without causing noticeable destruction, but Andromeda had liked herbology when they were younger, as he recalled; unlikely though it was that she'd have dangerous poisons lying around, there may be ingredients worth sparking ideas...

Turning the locket over in his hand, Regulus sighed deeply. If the Dark Lord went to such effort to hide the horcrux, of course he would not make it simple to destroy. He would just have to try harder.

* * *

The first words out of Andromeda's mouth were, "No." This wasn't altogether unusual, given Sirius had heard the word more than most in his lifetime, but he took offense to her saying it before he'd even gotten through the gateway to the garden.

"What'd I do?" he groused.

"You're going to barge in and wake him up." Andromeda took the old supermarket bag he'd enlarged and tossed in some of his practically unworn robes into from his hands.

"How do you know he's asleep?" Sirius protested as she took a few steps backwards and set them just inside the entrance way.

"It's quiet up there," Andromeda said. "He's exhausted."

Sirius scoffed at the idea of such flimsy evidence. "He's always quiet, and it's always exhausting trying to be practically perfect all the time. I take it from your Mama Bear routine, you're allowing him to stay?"

Andromeda nodded in assent. "He doesn't seem so different now to the eleven-year-old."

"It's not his fault he hasn't grown," Sirius commented.

"He's grown plenty," Andromeda replied. "I suppose I imagined his indiscretion would have left a larger mark on his personality."

"He's a neurotic little mess and always has been," Sirius told her, matter-of-factly.

"I thought I'd see some glimmer of – I don't know, the desire for darker pursuits." Andromeda wrinkled her nose. "I don't know if I find it reassuring or disturbing by that there is a lack of it."

"You want him to be a sadist?" Sirius asked.

"I'd like an explanation," Andromeda replied.

"You have one." Sirius rolled his eyes. "He can't say no. He acts so accommodating, they could have come up and said, 'say old chap, would you like to join our merry band of murderers for the greater glory of plunging the magical world into the depths of despair? We don't schedule any torture on days when you have tea with your mother,' and he would have replied 'splendid,' and asked for the appropriate attire for such an event."

"Old chap?" Andromeda replied. "Who do you imagine asked him in this scenario?"

"I don't know." Sirius waved off the comment. "Mum, your sister-"

"-Neither of whom sound as if they ought to be attending a society party in nineteen twenty-"

"- The point is that he's dug his grave, but he's not lingering in it, is he?" Sirius cast a look up at the house, as if he could see through walls. "He's trying to do something about it."

"But what?" Andromeda replied.

Sirius shrugged. "Have to ask him, won't you?"

* * *

Some time later, Regulus wandered down the stairs, checking out the window that Andromeda and her daughter were still out in the garden. Having confirmed as much, he peeked into a few cabinets in search of the potion stores, eventually finding a stash of jars and vials at the top of the kitchen larder. Aconite, boom berry, dandelion root, fire seed, death-cap, bloodrot…

Nudging a few of the front jars to the side, he was surprised to see that there were more poisonous, dangerous substances in her stores than he strictly expected, but it was a possible starting place, at the least. Poison could seep and wear in a way that perhaps a spell was often too blunt to manage… or if he could pry open the latch, the inside might be more vulnerable…

From behind him, a voice. "If you had asked, I could have shown you what you were looking for." Jolting subtly, Regulus filtered the alarm out of his expression before glancing back at her. Andromeda was standing barely inside the door of the house, but staring directly at him. "But since spending time with Sirius appears to have robbed you of your manners, then I shall simply ask if I can be of some assistance."

Regulus couldn't help but think that she had moved rather quickly to have wandered in so soon after he had checked. Considering the contents of this shelf, perhaps she had some sort of alert, or maybe just a sense for when someone was snooping in her things. He did not much like it when others rifled around in his belongings, but they were just potions—surely nothing personal—or so the immediate justification rolled in.

"I was merely curious and did not wish to bother you," he responded, smothering the awkwardness from his tone.

"It will only bother me if some of that Hogweed spills on you." Andromeda made a vague pointing motion above his head. "You could lose an eye, or at the very least, get some impressive scars from the blistering."

"I am careful," he responded with a firm nod; it was a thoughtful enough sentiment, though perhaps a greater point of concern had he been a child, rather than someone who had contacted plenty of dangerous substances just looking through the cabinets in his own home.

"You are convalescing," Andromeda replied. She took a few steps back into the living area, perhaps to get a better at what he was doing. "I am glad you're up and curious, if only because it means you're feeling better. I was unsure if you were awake, so your little parcel remains in the entrance-way."

A blend of curiosity and hesitance rose. "Parcel?"

"Nothing exciting. By weight and feel, I'd go with clothes, possibly a toothbrush or flannel." Andromeda made a waving motion. "Of course, this is Sirius we're talking about so it could also have fireworks or live reptiles."

An expected parcel, then, though he had not realised Sirius had come by again. "I would not put it past him."

"I don't imagine he went shopping, but since I rarely see him in robes these days, they're likely his." Andromeda gave him a critical look. "You'll swim if they are. You were a small baby. Are you still naturally small-framed or have you been losing weight too?"

Regulus shifted with a bristle. "I'm not small."

"Lean, not small." Andromeda corrected. "Your father was quite lean, as was his father, but you have barely eaten, and you're visibly upset. I'm just wondering if your lack of appetite is symptomatic or if it's normal for you."

"It comes and goes, I suppose," Regulus said uncomfortably and lifted a shoulder in a shrug.

"But goes more than it comes, I'd wager." Andromeda pushed her hair back before heaving a heavy sigh. "Am I really the first to mention it, if this has been going on so long you can make that statement?"

Judging by tone, the line of conversation was bordering on criticism against the family, though he wouldn't have expected anyone to pay mind to his eating, so he wasn't entirely certain. "My appetite isn't a topic of conversation."

"Your health and wellbeing," Andromeda corrected.

That was more noticeably critical. He held her look for a beat, shifted uncomfortably, then turned his attention back to the potion stores.

"I see," Andromeda replied flatly. "I may not be the Healer, but I think I shall prescribe a treatment of a good meal, a good night's sleep, and a good book. Were you looking for Dreamless Sleep? It's behind the mugwort."

Though he had not been specifically looking for a Dreamless Sleep potion, just hearing the name made his limbs feel heavy with the mounting exhaustion he had been trying to ignore. Jars clinked softly as he scooted the mugwort aside, revealing a few vials of it, dosed out per night. Even when she had noticed well enough to suggest it, taking one of the vials felt like admitting some sort of weakness, so he retracted his hands with the vial still left it in the cupboard. He would come back later…

"Noted," he said, and for a hesitant moment, his eyes remained trained on the potion stores. With a stash like this—not just a Healer's array—his cousin was likely to have some knowledge with potions… and perhaps if he was vague, he could still protect his secret. "Do you happen to have something corrosive?"

"Not if you're intending to use it on yourself," Andromeda replied, her tone tight.

Confusion flickered on his face for just a blink, dawning quickly to realisation as he ran the statement through his mind again. He wanted to be offended that she had assumed as much, but even with the lingering fog that had settled in his head, he could admit it maybe wasn't a completely unreasonable conclusion, given the circumstances of the previous night.

"Not on myself," Regulus said pointedly, shaking his head. "Or on any person, for that matter, before you assume as much; but there is something I need to do, and it's important." A little wave of uncertainty prodded at him, but he kept his voice even and forcibly nonchalant as he added, "If you cannot help, I will figure out another option, but I ask for your discretion, regardless." Something he ought to have secured first, he thought to himself in frustration, but he still felt frazzled at the edges...

Andromeda looked as if she wanted to take some offense to that, but however prickly she looked, she seemed to take it off. "How corrosive? I have a few acids in the shed for controlling the soil balance, but I think the only corrosive poison I have is lavellan venom or high concentrate bubotuber pus."

To hear poisons and dangerous substances listed off oughtn't be comforting, but in a sense, they were. He had half-expected her to shoo him away from the stores, but the half that had hoped for assistance visibly let loose of some measure of tension.

"As corrosive as you can manage," he responded.

"I don't have it here, but there is the option to collect Bundimun pus for the most effective work. There's a small cluster spawn at Buckenhill forest, about twenty minutes walk up the road." Andromeda glanced over him, but she was unreadable. "I believe it's used in building demolition, but not in this case?"

He shook his head. "None of your belongings are in danger, house included. It is merely a matter of coincidence and circumstance that Sirius brought me here rather than somewhere else." Turning over the prospect of pus collection, he thought that it was worth a try—and a forest would provide somewhere private to make further attempts on the horcrux. He hesitated just a beat longer before adding, "Thank you for the suggestion. I will try that."

"Where did you imagine he would bring you?" Andromeda asked.

Regulus lifted an uncomfortable shoulder. "I was not entirely convinced he would come at all, but I thought his flat, perhaps, if anything."

"You'd hate that flat," Andromeda grimaced at the idea. "There's no privacy at all. People traipse in and out without even the slightest bit of notice. Even the sanctity of the washroom is invaded. I don't think any of that furniture has ever been washed. It's exceptionally loud, as he has neighbours and is on a busy street. Ours may not be the biggest home, not the largest acreage, but it's clean, has a spare room, and is quiet during naptime."

"I do appreciate the quiet and the privacy," he admitted, a little uncertainly, but he nonetheless nodded his head to punctuate the sentiment.

"So I recall," Andromeda commented. "You should take the dragonhide gloves if you're messing about with corrosives."

"That would be very helpful," he admitted, giving the area a cursory glance, but he did not see them nearby.

"In the shed." Andromeda nodded her head towards the door. "It's unlocked. We're the scariest thing in this neighbourhood."

"A matter of perspective, I suppose." He did not think his cousin or her family were particularly alarming, especially when compared to essentially any other person he knew, but when compared to what he assumed to be a neighborhood of muggles, the standards would be different. "I will find them before I go out."

"I think it was Nymphadora running around with the lion's head." Andromeda shook her head. "Thank Merlin there was no tail. It'd be harder to explain."

"Lion's head?" He lifted his brow.

Andromeda regarded him curiously, before smiling slowly. "Oh, you don't know, do you? Well, I'm not spoiling that, you'll have to figure it out on your own."

Regulus did not much like the sense that he was probably the only one who didn't know something, but to make a scene of it only emphasized it more. What could cast a lion's head in such intrigue, he didn't know, but it was certainly curious.

"A mystery, is it?" he said casually, even as his mind rolled over ideas. She was too young to have been sorted already. Could Sirius have given her some obnoxiously large toy? "Hm."

"Call it an intellectual stimulant," Andromeda said, with little attempt to suppress the smile.

Some part of Regulus still felt as though he oughtn't admit to his interest in such things, simply because it had been brought up in this context, no matter how much he truly did enjoy entertaining curiosity (and no matter how much her expression suggested she realised as much). It was a rude thought, one he did not actually feel with a true emotional punch in that moment, automatic though it had been. Even so, he felt as if he was teetering on some edge that he could topple off of at any moment. He eyed her, then, but tipped a little nod. "Indeed."

"Keep me posted," Andromeda requested, clearly finding a lot of amusement in her proposed mystery. "I'm making tea, do you want any?"

"Yes, thank you," he settled, giving the set of potions one last look before closing the cupboard door for the moment. He would come back later.

The mood of the moment remained a strange mix of awkward and serene, and he was grateful - not for the first time - that Andromeda did not feel the need to fill the air with unnecessary chatter. Though she and her family were sheltering him, Regulus still felt a niggling uncertainty, like he'd been jammed into an ill-fitting slot, and he suspected she must feel the same way, despite her maintained politeness.

He accepted the tea when it was offered, but he wasn't sure if he felt more relieved or guilty when Andromeda promptly left him to sip it in silence. Settling by the window, he looked out at the garden, thick with greenery and summer blooms. He could see the little girl—Nymphadora—frolicking without care. For years, Regulus had carefully avoided any thoughts as to what his estranged cousin's life might be like away from the family. Upon learning that she'd left them, he had tried to imagine that her choice had gone terribly, that she would regret it and want to come home. The attempt had done nothing to make him less upset, so in the end, he settled to push her as far from his thoughts as he could manage.

Seeing the life she had built up around her, he did not think Andromeda regretted it at all. To some degree, a life beyond his family ought to pose some measure of hope, but it mostly hurt to think about.

Regulus knew he could not stay—but how could he possibly go home?

When the teacup was drained and returned to the kitchen, Regulus went upstairs to grab a bag from the closet and the book he had been keeping under his pillow. As inconspicuously as he could manage, he then made a motivated line for the door, slipping outside into the oppressive afternoon heat. From there, it took only a brief moment to find the shed Andromeda had mentioned, and as she'd indicated, dragonhide gloves (and an empty vial) were a quick find. Both were stuffed into the bag with his book.

Though Regulus had never been to the forest in question, he could see the line of trees in the distance, so he started on his walk without further word, taking a brisk pace and sparing only subtle observations of the village as he passed through.

It was surreal to see strangers milling around as though life was normal—to see them so untouched by the stressors that had plagued the past two days… the past few months… the past few years. Quaint and quiet, it was the sort of place that felt easy to fall into and forget to come back out again, though he knew he did not actually have such a luxury.

Upon reaching the forest, the Bundimun cluster took only a few minutes of dedicated searching, but once he found it, the matter of extracting puss from the fungal beasts was another matter. As he recalled, they had the capacity to spray acid at those who bothered them, and what he was planning to do most likely qualified as a bother. Regulus first patted on his pocket to make sure the locket was still there, then tugged on the dragonhide gloves and pulled out his wand. The Bundimun did not seem to have determined him a threat yet, though several of them had turn their horrible dome of eyes to watch him. One of them was starting to ooze suspiciously, so with a series of flicks—accompanied by a quiet _Petrificus Totalus_ —Regulus bound the creatures in rapid succession, holding up a gloved hand in at least some small defense.

Casting for the whole cluster took only seconds, and when the last was bound, Regulus tentatively lowered his wand and knelt down next to the patch. Keeping his wand in hand, he eyed the area for any movement he might have missed, but when no Bundimun rallied to an acid spray, Regulus took out the vial from his bag and set to work with the extraction process. He plucked one creature after another, teasing the puss out and into the vial with his wand, and though the Bundimun was little more than a bunch of eyes on a horrible, toothy fungus cap, he was pretty certain they were each scowling at him in turn. The puss was oozing out on the underside, and he silently—privately—thanked Andromeda for the gloves.

When his vial was full, Regulus placed the final Bundimun back with its companions and quietly backed away, moving away from the cluster and back in the direction he had come from. When Regulus was confident in his distance from them, he settled against a particularly large tree and pulled the locket out of his pocket. He could not say whether the puss would work—after all, the gloves were protection enough for his hand, and there was no telling what all the Dark Lord had done to Slytherin's locket—but it was a good place to start.

With the locket grasped tightly in hand, Regulus transfigured a stray stick into a bowl, cast an Impervius charm (and a strengthening charm to boot) on it, then set the locket inside, situating the bowl in the grass roughly a foot away. He poured some of the puss on top of the locket, letting the bowl catch the bits that slid off. Whether the bowl—or the vial—were sufficient to hold the puss without decaying over time was yet to be determined, and that was not something that felt wise to test back at the house.

After setting the vial next to the bowl, Regulus removed his gloves and pulled out the book he'd brought along. He did not feel burdened by any rush to return, so he would monitor the effects on the different materials; with enough of a stretch, it ought to be easy enough to see the speed of decay, if any, and that would be much more comfortable to tote back. Should the need arise, he could ask Andromeda about vials with stronger spells on them, but he did not much want to ask if it wasn't necessary.

Shooting one last glance at the locket, Regulus mentally urged it to corrode, then dove back into the day's reading.

* * *

In the end, the puss had done nothing to eat away at the Dark Lord's horcrux, much to Regulus's annoyance, but the vial had held against any deterioration, so that had been a small victory. There was still a chance that it could be used to strengthen another attempt on the locket, so in that respect, the setback could be considered minor. (The try was mostly unsuccessful, but there was, at least, a start to his list of what would and would not work.)

It was evening before Regulus had returned. Although his cousin had offered a place at the table that evening, he had opted to take his supper in the spare room, despite the rules of propriety that were being stomped upon by eating a meal on one's bed when one was not deathly ill. With some play on word choice, he thought that perhaps he could qualify himself as 'deathly ill' in light of the fact that he did not feel particularly well, and his situation had more than one connection to death. Loose though the interpretation might be, it was sufficient to settle his mind into a comfortable, if softly jesting, justification.

He had smuggled the book on rare herbs and poisons back up to his room, and he was picking up where he had left off when he heard a light rap on the door. Regulus could not remember the last time that he had experienced so many knocks for his attention within a twenty-four hour period. Between Andromeda's family and Sirius (who had been popping in and out), there were at least four immediate options.

Marking his place in the book and sticking it under his pillow, Regulus called through the door, "You may come in."

The door handle turned, and in walked Ted Tonks, Andromeda's husband. He looked over Regulus with a grim expression but closed the door behind before he spoke. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

Regulus watched him for a moment, struck with the temptation to flatly ignore the question—partially because he did not much like talking about how he was feeling and partially because conversation with Andromeda's muggle husband became increasingly less permissible as time distanced him from the events of the cave.

The temptation was there, but his need to reciprocate civility was even more nagging. "Better, I suppose," he answered, though it was a rather low bar, considering the brush with death he had been reeling from the night before.

"Can you elaborate on that?" Ted pressed. "Patient to Healer."

Regulus pressed his lips to a line. Trying to think of the man as a Healer rather than his estranged cousin's husband was theoretically helpful, in a sense, but it was not an easy task. "What would you like elaboration on?"

Ted looked at him, a flicker of an expression that wasn't easily discernible. "Are you still feeling sick? Any residual panic? Nightmares? Are you in any sort of physical pain? Are you light-headed?"

"The majority of it has passed." Regulus flicked his eyes up then down again; if anything, the discomfort was mental. The nightmares were the worst of it, now. "I did not sleep well, but calming my mind ought to settle the rest."

"That's easier said than done," said Ted Tonks, mildly. "What coping mechanisms do you use?"

Frowning, Regulus looked at him for a moment. Strange phrasing, though Regulus could guess at what he meant, if they were talking about coping with the concerns. 'What he intended to use' was a solution-based question, and Regulus understood those perfectly well. "I was considering a dose of Dreamless Sleep tonight to combat the nighttime restlessness."

Ted shuffled into the room further, then took a seat on the bare edge of the end of the bed. "Beyond that," he said, after a beat. "You took something dangerous—either under duress or self-inflicting—and neither looks very promising for having only a short term impact, does it? Bravery and nobility are great things, but the aftermath can be a bit of a rollercoaster if you get what I mean. You did ask for help, and I'm not one to turn people away that need it or see them suffer without cause."

"Technically, I asked Sirius," Regulus mumbled, though it was born more from the prickling discomfort than it was actually relevant to the point. In truth, Regulus didn't get exactly what he meant by 'rollercoaster' either, but once again, the context was clear enough, so he did not much want to ask. It was probably a muggle thing. "Are you referring to my plan for explaining myself?" he continued in a clearer tone. Sirius had been prodding at the point, too, though less incessantly than he could be.

"No, lad," Ted replied, with an even tone. "I'm referring to your plan of taking care of yourself following what I'm sure has to have been a very intense, traumatic event."

It was not the response Regulus had anticipated, and he was not entirely certain what to do with a remark like that. "I will manage," he settled after a still pause. "As much as I appreciate plans, I should not require a plan for that."

"You do have to plan for it," Ted said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "The body doesn't do things for the hell of it. It does things to get the attention of the driver who's ignoring what's happening and hoping it'll go away. Right now, think of it as a child, a very hyperactive child, not unlike my own. This child knows something scary has happened—is maybe still happening—and doesn't know what to do, so it falls back on what's worked before. It's keeping you battle ready in case you need to fight, giving you nightmares where it scrambles over the same experience hoping you'll learn something in retrospect that helps you if it's going to happen again. Keeps you awake so you're not vulnerable, keeps blood pumping faster so you'll have quick reflexes, makes you aware of everything at once in case you need to use it to your defense. Your body needs signs, reassurance that it's safe to relax and rest and that you don't need to go for your wand for a while. It's about sending the message that everything will be okay, even if you're not too sure of it, so you can get some rest."

"Are you suggesting I'm a child?" A touch of defensiveness crept into his tone, though Regulus did not much like the implications (nor the accuracy) in the rest of it.

"No," Ted replied. "It's a metaphor to explain internal body function. I don't think it matters what the age of the person is, apart from a wrinklier outside."

Some of the tightness loosened in Regulus's expression. It sounded a little bit like the mounting worry, the nagging memories that cycled against his will, clouded with that constant sinking feeling; but Regulus did not much like the sound of 'traumatic,' and it was hard to pick it apart from the sinking feeling he'd already been experiencing in the months leading up. "So is the question how I am planning to de-stress?"

"And any help you require to do that in the longer term than a few potions," Ted confirmed.

"The potions should be sufficient. I can manage myself when I'm awake," Regulus said with a little tip of his head.

"Everyone struggles sometimes," Ted said, glancing down over him critically. "The door is open when you need it, no matter which of you is doing the asking."

Regulus did not much like the look, but the sentiment seemed to be unnervingly genuine. He wasn't sure why Andromeda's husband was acting concerned when he had not minded yanking her away from her family and causing all that stress he was referring to, but he did not appear to be presenting it falsely, unless he was a remarkable liar. That didn't seem like the most likely possibility.

"I suppose so," Regulus said in a measured tone.

"What about your arm?" Ted gestured towards it. "How is it feeling?"

"Stings a little sometimes, but mostly, I don't notice it," Regulus responded, grateful for the more straightforward subject. "It could probably benefit from a fresh wrap."

"I'll sort that," Ted nodded. "What about that bruising?"

"I have not checked extensively, though there are some areas of tenderness," Regulus said in response. The spots had only felt a little sharper than the weighty haze of fatigue, and only when he moved in particular ways. Some pain potions were drowsy, depending how they were made, and though he did not want to say as much, that had seemed a risk, prior to his discovery of the dream-sweeping stash in the kitchen larder.

Ted made a beckoning motion with his hand. "I'm a bit more worried about your neck. Any pain or discomfort there?"

Regulus tensed slightly at the mental flash of hands grasping at his throat, then blinked it away with a pressed mouth. Frozen in his spot, he answered, "Some, yes."

"Can I check it?" Ted put both his hands up. "My hands are warm, I swear."

After flicking an uncomfortable glance towards Ted's hands, then briefly to his face, Regulus calmed the jolting seize in his chest and nodded, though it was clearly a situation where he knew he was probably supposed to say no on principle, Healer or not. He did not shift closer to Ted, strictly speaking, but he moved to the edge of the bed to make the check simpler.

Ted showed him both his hands before pressing his fingers lightly at Regulus's neck. "Deep breath in, slow out."

Wordlessly, Regulus did so.

Ted frowned, then pressed his fingers with increasing pressure. "Tender?"

Regulus winced and pulled back, nerves thrumming as he tried to slowly blink away any thoughts about the inferi. (It was like Occlumency- just clear the mind-) Steeling himself, he forced a nod.

"I thought so, that bruising looks angry," Ted replied grimly. "I think ice it, and I'll take another look after you've had a full night's rest. Is that bruising anywhere else?"

Regulus had half a mind to lie to make the interaction end quicker, but instead he nodded again. "Upper arms." He had not thoroughly checked himself for bruises that he simply had not felt in any significant way but decided it was better to leave it at that, lest further checks be suggested. The ones on his arms and were about enough to note, at least, even if they felt like a small problem in the grand scheme of it.

"Can I see them?" Ted pressed.

With lips flattened to a line, Regulus pushed up his right sleeve to reveal a darkening bruise between the elbow and shoulder. Eyeing for a moment, he could see that it was blotched vaguely like a handprint, though the grips had been too slippery and frantic to keep much of a hold at the time, he supposed. Lips pressing firmer, he looked uncomfortably at the wall.

Ted took a sharp intake of breath, but he then quickly pressed his fingers gingerly against the skin. "Another nasty one, you're going to be turning some funny colours for a bit," Ted said, quietly. "We'll keep those cool, see if it'll keep them in check, but I wouldn't recommend you doing whatever it is with whomever it was again unless you're enjoying being a walking bruise."

"I was not planning to," Regulus muttered, pulling his sleeve down again.

"I'll get some supplies, redo your dressing, and you ought to try to sleep. It's the best medicine," Ted said, putting his hands on his knees and pulling himself up with an 'oof' sound. "I was surprised you were feeling up to wander earlier."

"A few bruises are not excuse enough to be unproductive," Regulus said, dipping his chin in a small nod.

"It's not just a few bruises," Ted replied. "I think you know that."

For having married a Black, Regulus thought that Ted really did not know how to let understatement protect a person's pride. "At the moment, I have bigger concerns to attend to than matters of immediate comfort."

"What concerns do you have at this exact time?" Ted asked. "Your agenda is supposed to be resting, taking care of yourself, and then dealing with everything else. I realise it's a big undertaking, but it's an important one. Everything else can, and is currently, waiting."

Gathering that this was the sort of situation where one told the Healer one thing with full intention of doing whatever _actually_ suited in any given moment, Regulus nodded in what he hoped was an appeasing way. There was plenty of destruction-related research to be done, which would account for at least some of the time.

Ted sighed. "You're humouring me, aren't you?"

There was no functional point in denying it, so Regulus responded, "Experienced that a lot, have you?"

"I'm familiar with a person telling me one thing then just doing whatever they were going to anyway, damned be the consequences." Ted huffed lightly. "I've met—well, my wife, daughter and your brother. You could say I've experienced it a lot."

Crinkling his nose, Regulus was not quite certain if he felt comfortable with the comparison to the tendencies of the estranged, traitor to the Cause or not. At the same time, it was perhaps more accurately a trait exhibited by many members of their family, regardless of their place (or lack thereof) on the family tree, so his expression smoothed again. "I was referring to your patients, but I suppose that is also applicable."

"Sometimes they're patients too." Ted nodded. "Curiosity and being stubborn does mean a fair few scrapes, literal and otherwise."

"I can usually avoid them," Regulus said, lifting a shoulder.

"But not now?" Ted pressed.

"It is a special situation," Regulus responded pensively.

"I have a fair bit of experience with those if you need to talk about it with someone who doesn't know you from Adam," Ted offered.

As adept as Andromeda's husband had been at causing a fracture, Regulus sincerely doubted he would have much insight on how Regulus could avoid another one without compromising on his present convictions, and it was taking concentrated self-control not to directly say as much to the person overseeing his healing situation.

"I appreciate the salves and potions, but I don't think the remainder of my situation is something you can help with," Regulus said vaguely to the wall.

For a moment, Ted smiled, but it was gone almost as quickly. "It doesn't have to be me, but if you have someone you trust, you should try to talk about it. It'll help with your processing, so you won't get as many side effects. Do you have someone like that?"

Tensing slightly, Regulus thought of Barty—someone he very much could not discuss his particular set of concerns, however much he might like to, and that made the sting worse. "Talking isn't going to change the situation." He shook his head. "I can figure it out."

"Bottling it up won't help your health," Ted said, quietly. "So it would change that."

"I know Sirius has probably presented me as some soft and incapable child, but I'm not," Regulus said a little stiffly. "Just because I had a bad night doesn't mean I'm useless at managing my own situation. No one was concerned about my well being before yesterday, so you needn't scramble to it now."

"You weren't my professional responsibility before yesterday. In fact, I'd be more concerned about my health than yours if we were meeting in your recently vacated professional responsibility." Ted replied. "I realise my existence causes you distress, but I still have a duty of care, and I'm going to do my very best to uphold it despite that. That includes recommending any ways to lessen symptoms and potential future problems that could arise from a traumatic event, whether you chose to do anything about it or not. Let me do my job, then you can go back to politely ignoring me and doing what you choose."

Regulus shifted uncomfortably, then flicked a brief glance at him before looking back to the wall. Professional responsibility sounded more accurate, though Regulus still wasn't convinced that talking about—what—his feelings? His plans? He was not sure what Ted Tonks thought he ought to be talking about to keep his symptoms from worsening, but the only talking that seemed like it would make any difference was managing to persuade his friends and family to turn against Voldemort. Perhaps Aunt Lucretia would be sympathetic, but strategy did not sound like the suggestion at hand.

"God help me, the stubborn sulk is genetic." Ted ran his hand over his face, then stretched his face out. "Redressing, salve, potions—are you going to take Dreamless Sleep, or suffer in silence?"

Calling it 'sulking' sounded childish, and Regulus showed him a look of mild annoyance, but he opted not to comment on it, lest Ted think it an invitation to further compare him to his estranged family members. So far, those comparisons had not been to his liking.

"I'll take it," Regulus responded quietly, instead.

"Thank you," Ted replied, before exiting.

When the door was shut, Regulus released a heavy sigh and ran his hands over his face. He wished he had been harsher, that he could have verbalised something to make the man feel some fraction of the chaotic hurt stabbing sporadically in his chest, but being in this house felt so strange, and he was too drained to even pull forth a fight.

He would go downstairs, get the potion… and perhaps, for the first time since before the cave (for the first time in a long time), Regulus could find some reprieve.


	3. Churning Points and Turning Points

**Chapter 3: Churning Points and Turning Points**

* * *

Morning sun rays were starting to creep up over the horizon when Regulus woke up to the sound of a knock on his door. Weighted by the grogginess of the sleeping potion he had swiped the night before, he curled up a bit more, rubbed his eyes, and waited a good five seconds before steeling himself to sit up.

Through the door crack, Andromeda's daughter was already peeking in, opening the door a bit more when they made eye contact.

"You're awake!" Though her voice had the raspy tones of a whisper, it had none of the muted volume.

With a slow blink, Regulus nodded, thinking her far too chipper but deciding not to say as much. A clawing sort of feeling in his chest made him want to crawl back under the covers, but he forced himself to speak. "It seems you are too."

The girl scrunched up her face to a comical degree. "So do you _want_ to do forts now?"

Ah. As expected, he did not feel up to this particular conversation. The question was simple enough, but it brought with it an echo: that little Nymphadora would get bored of him soon enough, anyway. Perhaps it had been an offhand remark, but if even Andromeda thought it was pointless to get too comfortable or make too much effort here, Regulus didn't particularly want to be the only one to think otherwise. He had only been with them for a couple of days, but he knew he would outstay the welcome soon enough.

(Sirius was the one they liked, and he wasn't in the mood to be a stand in.)

"I'm busy this morning."

"Oh," the girl replied, her tone crestfallen. "What are you doing?"

Regulus shifted, a little stiffly. "Reading."

"Will it take all day?" she asked. "How long is the book?"

"Long enough," he responded, a bit short as he felt a little pinch at his neck where the locket's chain was bunching, sweeping a hand under the neck of his pyjamas.

She must have picked up on it though. "Well, excuuuse me for breathing," she said, in a tone that made it sound like she was quoting or had simply picked up the phrasing in its entirety. She quickly followed this by pushed back out of the room, and letting the door shut.

The silence did nothing for his mood, offering none of the immediate relief he often felt when a stressful social interaction ended. At least he could be alone with the clawing feeling now. With his luck, the little girl would probably go tattle to Andromeda... A bitter sting, only made worse by the reality of it: from the start, he had felt less of a rush to leave than he knew he ought to, but that did not mean he was not in borrowed time.

With a huff, Regulus sunk down into his pillow again, pulling the locket out from under his nightshirt. However it all turned out, getting the locket safely out of reach of potential snoopers would be a relief (and to see it destroyed—it would be an even greater relief to see it destroyed). The locket was terribly uncomfortable to sleep in, but at least he didn't have to worry about anyone finding it while he wasn't even conscious.

As affronted as Andromeda's child had looked, he truly did have more than enough reading to resume (and trips to the forest to venture) if he had any hope of destroying the locket without forcing himself back into the Death Eater fold. The thought made him even sicker to his stomach, stuffing it down as soon as it rose up, but it was where he'd learned of the locket in the first place...

Closing his fist around the emerald S, he tugged it over his head and shoved it in the pocket of the day's robes. Annoying (and humiliating) as it might be, he had carefully shrunk one of the robes Sirius had dropped off; it did still swallow him a bit more than he liked, and it wasn't tailored properly to his frame at all, but at least it wasn't the same thing he had worn for the last two days.

When he was dressed, he grabbed his book for the morning and checked out the window. Seeing no one in the garden, he apparated straight outside with a soft pop.

* * *

There was a near collision at the doorway of the Tonkses' home later that morning. It involved one Ted Tonks—eyes cracked a mere smidgen by sheer effort alone after several long days of work—and James Potter, who had lenses thick enough that Sirius had once attempted to use them as a door stopper, so perhaps it shouldn't have been a terrible surprise when the two bounced into the doorframe and Ted almost dropped the milk bottle.

"I'm trying to remember a time when I didn't find teenage boys on the doorstep," Ted told James, or at least himself.

"Am I related to this one?" Maybe to Andromeda then.

"Yes," James volunteered, raising his voice so's she could hear him. "Cousins, one best mate removed."

Andromeda Tonks, impeccably dressed as per usual, appeared at the doorway. "He's not here."

"I didn't come for him." James waved her off, which resulted in the eyebrow thing that Sirius did as well. "I can't drop in for a chat?"

"You could," Andromeda replied. "But you don't."

"I'm doing a quick favour and checking on the baby," James responded. Patently untrue. Absolute falsehood.

He reckoned Andromeda was onto him too.

"Nymphadora is a little young to be having gentleman callers," Andromeda said, with such a deadpan seriousness that he almost thought she was— _heh_ —serious.

"Not her," James said. Baby Tonks, christened Nymphadora of all things, was a little firecracker, and he'd have no objections hanging with her for a bit if he weren't on a little bit of a schedule.

"Did Sirius ask?" Andromeda asked. Bloody Slytherins, why always so many questions?

James nodded, "Absolutely." Absolutely was still short for 'absolutely not,' wasn't it? "Where is he?"

Andromeda did that thing where she looked him over without nothing but a blank expression. Finally, she said. "In the garden." James made the move to head directly there, before she called him back. "James! If either of you dare draw your wand in my garden or wreck my shrubbery, I'll knock both of you into the middle of next week."

"Next week is no good for me," James said. "What about in a fortnight?"

Andromeda picked up her wand, and pointed it at him. "If I need to disarm you, I will. There'll be no fighting here."

"Unless you start one?" James asked.

"I don't start fights," Andromeda replied, mildly. "I simply win them when they happen to come across my path."

"No fights," James promised, putting both of his hands up.

After all, he had no intention of actually fighting the little swot. Catching sight of him, James bit back a laugh because it was still true. Sirius probably still had half a head on him, if not more. A bit pale round the edges, but not the at death's door, as Sirius had been describing. As much as he often enjoyed his best mate's frequent employment of dramatic hyperbole, he didn't like it when it meant the baby Death Eater wasn't bedridden and unlikely to be troublesome.

"I thought you were off on some chaise lounger being brought smelling salts for your constitution," James asked.

Immediately, Regulus's entire frame tensed, but he didn't even bother looking up from whatever book he had his nose stuck in. "What are you doing here?"

"You were supposedly on your deathbed. Writing your memoirs. Today, I was pompous and had to get my shoes in the children's section, woe is me, etcetera." James gave another look over him; nope, no easily discernible actual injuries. He was absolutely faking it. "Instead, you're swotting it up."

Regulus rolled his eyes, then, flattening his expression even more. "Are you here for an actual reason, or did you just pop in to administer unsolicited and unprovoked mockery?"

"I wanted to see what makes Regulus Ackshrus Black come down off his high horse enough to mix with people dead to him." James looked around, and shrugged. "I'm underwhelmed."

"I wasn't trying to impress you, so I don't particularly care if you are underwhelmed, overwhelmed, moderately whelmed," came the snipping reply as Regulus finally looked up from his book. "As it is, this matter doesn't concern you."

"Just who are you trying to impress?" James asked. "Because right now, it just looks like you're pissing off everyone, and dragging everyone else along for the ride, because like all toddlers, you can't even cross the road by yourself, let alone leave the Death Eaters."

Regulus's scowl darkened. "The goal isn't to impress anyone. I'm just trying to do the right thing without getting murdered." Sitting up stiffly, he added, "You are truly unbelievable."

"Thanks, it comes naturally." What, did he want a cookie for doing what he should have done years ago instead of signing on the dotted line for murder and maiming? "No offense, but the last time I checked, my idea of the right thing and yours had some very different points. Which right idea have you come to glorious conclusion of?"

"Leaving the Death Eaters, stopping the Dark Lord—I know better than to expect your comprehension, but I would think you could at least deduce that much," Regulus clipped.

"I thought you were a big fan," James sniped back.

"Obviously, I changed my mind," he responded shortly.

"You have one of those of your own, then?" James asked. "I've been looking for the strings all these years."

The scowl sharpened. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't."

That would have had a lot more weight to it if Sirius had not literally done it first. Not that he'd shown up here, but truthfully, he didn't know if Sirius even knew where she lived then. "Aren't you an even split at this point? Narcy with Lushums and Trixie being...Trixie, then you've got the ones that aren't completely mental."

Regulus's mouth tightened more with each word. "I know my own relatives," he said coldly, "though I don't know anyone by those particular names."

"Which ones are you counting as relatives, again?"

"What do you care?" Regulus crinkled his nose. "You really ought to mind your own business."

"Because I have no idea if this sudden change is proof I'm about to lose a bet about Sirius being the milkman's and you _are_ related,"—not bloody likely, but James could appreciate the unpredictable—"or you're fibbing, and putting not only him in danger, but a little kid."

"If they ask me to leave, I'll leave, but I am _not_ 'fibbing'." His mouth curled downward, holding a sharp stare before looking down at his still-open book, propping it up between them.

James gave his twelve-year-old self a high-five for making him say the word fibbing, because pointing it out was going to make him lose all momentum. "Historically, it's not them that do the kicking out, is it?"

Stonily, Regulus kept staring at the page.

"If you've decided to use your brain for once, great. That's nice. Don't get them in trouble if the door comes back and bites you for it." James forced a shrug. "If you are lying, all bets are off. No one else has gotten a free pass for joining the murderers, and I wouldn't count on getting more than one. Let's face it, your mother would rather have a convict than another traitor."

"Don't talk to me about my mother," came the tight-mouthed response, "and don't talk to me about stakes as if I'm not aware of them. If that is all you have to stay, you can stop wasting your breath and my time."

"That's not a mother, it's a banshee made flesh." He'd said his piece. He'd given him his warning. Whatever happened, he'd done that. "I'll let you get back to having afternoon tea with a book in the gardens like an elderly dowager instead of a murderer, shall I?"

Regulus looked up with a flash of fury in his face. For a moment, it looked like that book was going to get pelted at him, but instead, it seemed the baby Black was just white-knuckling the cover. "Leave. Now."

"The difference between you and I is when I care about someone, I'm willing to do everything possible to make sure they don't get hurt. That includes dealing with you, baby Black." James fired off a salute but took a couple of steps backwards. He wasn't particularly bothered by the little oncoming temper tantrum, but he was a little worried about being turned into a frog by Andromeda if they messed up her garden. "Be seeing you."

* * *

Regulus had not been stewing for very long before the door to the garden creaked open, but he did not look up at the second approach of the morning, holding his stony scowl on the the page before him. Potter's presumptions were as infuriating as his insults, and Regulus was turning them over his mind with a fresh review, and no matter who it was, he did not much feel like talking.

There was a bash and click of the door, but no one else came through it. Andromeda looked around, then nodded to herself. "Nothing disturbed, excellent. Do you need anything?"

"What I need is an explanation of why you thought it was a good idea to send Potter out here for a chat," he said tightly, still without looking up.

"It was a reasonable request," Andromeda replied. "Do you need a guest list?"

"Don't patronise me," he said sharply and flicked his eyes up. "Should you ever again be struck with the urge to honour such a request from him, don't. He has no intention of believing anything I say—just thinks it's a laugh to mock me and dangle insults—and it's _not_ helping the situation."

"I don't appreciate the mockery, no," Andromeda replied. "So duly noted. Visitor status revoked."

Regulus eyed her for a moment longer. Some part of him had expected her to make an excuse for Potter on behalf of Sirius, but when those excuses never came, he felt some of the frantic tension in his chest starting to loosen again. "Thank you," he said in a milder (if mildly suspicious) tone, looking down at his book again with a little frown.

"Stay hydrated in that sun," Andromeda reminded him. She looked as if she would say something else, but then simply went back inside.

Regulus settled back in with his book, then, and though his Potterborne anger was still simmering beneath the surface, Andromeda had left behind a small measure of calm. Unexpected, but calm, nonetheless. Perhaps Nymphadora had not complained too thoroughly, after all.

He did not relish the idea of putting _any_ of them in danger, whatever Potter might think. Guilt jabbed sharp and swift anytime he thought of how his decisions were about to affect everyone around him… Sirius and Andromeda, but everyone else he cared about too. His mother, his grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins...his friends...even Kreacher. (Kreacher, who had nearly died. His father, who _had_.) The insults themselves were irritating—somehow, Potter still wasn't tired of mocking his height or his fondness for reading—but insulting his family and calling his defection sincerity into question was even more infuriating.

Potter wasn't the sort to have faith in him, and Regulus had already suspected that his brother's side of the war wasn't going to accept him, no matter what he did...but it had stung more than he'd thought (or cared to admit).

Evening brought the next point of interest when Sirius came calling. Regulus was curled up on a large cushion seat by the (unlit) fireplace, flipping through a book he had plucked off the bookshelf a few minutes before. A small wash of tension returned upon seeing his brother, and he eyed the door to make sure Sirius hadn't brought his idiot friend along… but after only a few seconds, it was well-confirmed that Sirius was alone. Some of that tension faded again, so while Sirius was greeting the others, he returned his attention to the book.

"Despite everything else, you've managed to find a cosy chair with minimal people and maximum books," Sirius exclaimed. "Congratulations, your transformation into Dad is almost complete. I think I've got some hair growth tonic somewhere if you want to go the whole way."

Regulus marked his place and looked up. "That won't be necessary."

Instead of sitting down on any of the available seating, Sirius perched himself on the arm of the same chair. "You look more human today."

The remark sounded as much like an insult as it did a compliment, but Regulus opted not to press the point. "I do feel more rested, if that's what you mean."

"You don't look like you're ready to jump out the window," Sirius specified. He made a vague gesture towards him. "Danger zone passed? No chance you're being slowly poisoned?"

"Minimal chance, at least," Regulus responded.

"Any closer on any sort of decision?" Sirius prodded.

Pressing his lips to a thoughtful line, Regulus paused for a brief moment. He hated the way Potter's accusations rang in his mind, turning over whether it really _was_ weak and childish to have brought Sirius and Andromeda into his problems instead of keeping it to himself, as he'd intended, prior to the cave… but the revulsion he felt at even entertaining the thought that Potter could be right about something was enough to strengthen his resolve. Potter probably just wanted him to fail and die so he was out of the way. So much for that moral high ground he so arrogantly touted.

"I haven't reached out to Aunt Lucretia yet, but I do think I'd like to," he answered carefully.

"What do you want to say to her?" Sirius asked. "Assuming she even knows you're not at home right now."

"To some degree, I expect to tailor the approach to how she responds." He lifted a shoulder. "I would like to know her present position, but I want to minimise any alarm."

"It's not as if you can walk in and say 'Auntie, dear, I think I've had _quite_ enough of this Voldemort chap. What do you think of him?'" In an all too predictable move, Sirius reached for the book.

Immediately, Regulus pulled it back towards himself, out of reach. "Well, I don't intend to _open_ the conversation that way."

"It's not that I'm rushing you out the door," Sirius replied, moving his hand down by the back of the chair and unceremoniously yanking a pillow out to lean on. "But she's going to be less horrifying than Mum, who has probably noticed something's up by now."

No matter what his mother assumed, it wouldn't be good. "It seems likely that she has… I know that delaying is only making it worse, but..." Crinkling his nose, Regulus shook his head.

"No, I was going to say it'll be worse if she decides to track you down," Sirius replied. "If she comes here."

"That would be worse." The crinkle turned into a frown, shifting in his seat with a little twinge of guilt—for the hypothetical distress Andromeda would experience, for the inevitable distress of his mother. "But I won't be staying for long. It's unlikely to reach that point."

"You, she might try and track _you_ down. It's not that I don't think Andromeda could hold her own, but you get weird about fighting around you, and it's probably not good for her sprog." Sirius was still fidgety, despite having the cushion. "Her or Lu first?"

"I'm not trying to put anyone or their children in danger, despite what you and Potter might think," Regulus said as his voice started to stiffen. "I comprehend the point. I won't be staying much longer."

Sirius waited a beat, then simply said, "What are you on about?"

The look on his brother's face suggested that maybe he wasn't privy to Potter's visit earlier that day, but that still did not do much to help with the feeling that was twisting up in Regulus's chest again. His voice was chilly and sharp as he responded, "I'm talking about Potter's little visit earlier today, brimming with self-righteous mockery, as ever. Apparently he has nothing better to do than come tell me to keep my impending murder to myself so as to inconvenience you all less. After all, I must be faking it, right? I'm _both_ faking it because I couldn't _possibly_ change my mind about the war, and _also_ endangering you all—for fun, of course—because I _did_ change my mind about the war. We can just alternate between the two—whichever sounds worse at any given moment."

Regulus felt some horrible knot of emotion tighten in his throat, cutting off the remaining point. As he gripped his book, he took in a swift breath through his nose, then let it out again.

"James was here," Sirius replied after a beat of silence. "When was he here?"

"This afternoon," Regulus responded curtly.

Sirius put his hands across his face, and groaned. "He's married. Can't his wife watch him for a couple of hours while I take a nap? I _know_ you're not faking it. You don't know how. You're a terrible liar."

Backhanded again. Being called a terrible liar sounded a little bit like an insult and a little bit like a compliment, but Regulus decided to take it as the latter if it helped support his point. At the least, the rush of anger had started to cool again. "Thank you," he mumbled. "I don't care if he likes me—I certainly don't like him. What he thinks I should do really doesn't matter to me, but I am not blind to the risks or consequences. I'll deal with it myself when I have a plan."

"You leaping first before looking isn't your usual thing," Sirius said quietly. "It's much more mine, and I put myself in much more dangerous before breakfast than you could ever put me in before dinner."

It was strange: Normally, Sirius's penchant for danger and for trouble was a point of frustration and stress, but in a strange way, it almost felt like a comfort, in that moment. "I _had_ a plan," Regulus countered, a little defensively, but most of the tension had already loosened from his tone again. He released the deathgrip on his book and looked back up. "I just need a new plan."

"Did the last plan get derailed before, during, or after you ended up sopping wet at the summer house?" Sirius asked.

After a steeling sigh, Regulus responded, "That's approximately the point it got derailed, yes."

"It was going well before that?" Sirius pushed.

Regulus fought a wince, trying to keep his face neutral. "Depends on one's definition. This isn't exactly a situation that goes 'well.'" He shook his head. "No one who isn't related to me is going to believe me, but I did expect that. No one at home is likely to believe me for the opposite reasons. It's just frustrating."

"I think you'll have plenty of trouble getting people who are related to you to believe you," Sirius replied. "It's whether they know you, no matter here or there."

An exhausting thought. Regulus huffed softly.

"You think I don't know you?" Sirius asked. "I'd get a fucking O on that test. My head is full of useless junk."

Normally, Regulus would counter that Sirius had not made much effort to know him in a long time, but Sirius was (shockingly) one in a very, very small pool of people who wasn't making him feel more like rubbish than he already did, so he kept the remark to himself.

"It would be complicated to try to respond to that in a way that does not agree that information about me is useless," Regulus began, but the line of conversation was interrupted by a tapping on the window. Craning his head just a little, he saw a large brown tawny owl flapping just outside. A delivery for Andromeda's family, most likely, so he leaned back in his chair.

"That," Andromeda said, punctuating the word heavily, "owl does not belong to anyone we know. Sirius?"

Adjusting himself on the seat, Sirius leaned back. "Nope," he declared after a moment. "Should someone check it for explosives?"

"My darling, that is _your_ area of expertise," Andromeda replied. "Not mine."

"Yes, all right." Sirius said, pulling himself off the side of the arm to get a look at the bird. His eyebrows lifted, and he waved the parchment in Regulus's direction. "It's for you, so maybe it still needs checking for explosives."

Twisting to take a second (closer) look, Regulus paused, then stood to cross the room.

Even before opening the letter, he recognised the owl as Barty's tawny, and his chest seized a little bit with a rush of loneliness. Reaching out, he pet the owl's head; it lightly nipped at his fingers, possibly checking for a treat, but the nip wasn't hard enough to pinch. Pulling back, he accepted the letter from Sirius and noted Barty's handwriting, as expected.

"It should be safe," Regulus said, though his heart was hammering as he unfolded the parchment.

Skimming his eyes rapidly over the words, he relaxed a little to see that there were no raging accusations nor any dangerous surprises waiting inside, masked under the guise of his friend's handwriting and owl. Just Barty, asking where he was and if he was alright. Perhaps it meant that suspicion had not yet spread throughout the Death Eater ranks - or perhaps it was just Barty giving him the benefit of the doubt. Whichever it was, Barty's words spread like a balm over the stress of the past two days, and his shoulders visibly relaxed.

"That's not from Mum," Sirius stated. "You look too happy."

"Rude though your remark might be, it's not her, no," Regulus said, flicking his eyes over to Sirius then back to the letter to carefully fold it again. "It's from a friend."

"Real or imaginary?"

Regulus scowled. "Real." He slipped the letter in his pocket opposite the locket—the one that wasn't sealed, at the moment. "Barty Crouch, just asking where I am."

"I know that name," Sirius replied. "I can't put it to a face though. Have you always had real friends or is this a recent development?"

" _Yes_ , I have real friends," Regulus said with a little twinge of annoyance. "You aren't the only one capable of friendship."

"No need to bite my head off," Sirius replied. "Last I saw, you were hanging out with Evan's lot, and I didn't think you'd seem happy to see a letter from a Death Eater."

"I'm happy to see a letter from Barty," Regulus corrected. Technically, Barty was a Death Eater too, and Regulus knew it was more prudent to treat Barty as a threat in this situation, but of all his friends, he liked to think there was perhaps a chance…

"Planning on replying?" Sirius prompted.

"I probably should," Regulus said. "Vaguely, at least… Uncertainty can delay the initial concerns, but at this point, ignoring a direct owl could escalate the concerns and backfire. It might help to speak with Aunt Lucretia first, to assess the state of things; tomorrow, perhaps…"

"If you're planning to see Aunt Lucretia, why don't you make a reservation at one of the private clubs?" Andromeda had been busying herself with things, but had apparently decided to admit to listening in. "You're seventeen; you can make your own reservations and tell them you want a private room. That does minimise the possibility of an ambush."

"It maximises the possibility of someone asking if he's a kid there to see his father," Sirius muttered.

Regulus scowled at his brother again. "No one asked you."

"I give my opinion freely and often," Sirius replied. "You're less likely to be seen if you go to the house."

Pressing his lips to a line, Regulus eyed him. On the one hand, a private room played it more natural; on the other, ambushes were less likely with Lucretia, specifically, and it was ultimately more private. "That is also true."

"She already knows something's up by now," Sirius shrugged. "By tomorrow, she probably knows you're not at home when you're supposed to be."

"Probably… That particular reveal is inevitable, I suppose," he said, thinning his lips to a line.

"That gives you a day to think of a better reason than hanging with traitors of excellent pedigree and convince yourself you're not lying," Sirius replied, slipping backwards to sit in the chair with his legs hanging over the edge. "You could say a kidnapping."

"Or he could tell her the truth," Andromeda suggested.

Sirius sat up, at attention suddenly. " _'Tell the truth'_? Are you mad? He's trying to avoid getting murdered, so not getting it in the neck from the Death Eaters will be useless if mother dearest smothers him in his sleep."

"The truth is subjective. It's why veritaserum isn't used in trials frequently," Andromeda argued. "Taking sojourn to reflect upon a new stage in adulthood, particularly after a trying year, is not unheard of and would coincide with the decision that genocide is impolite."

"How is that the truth?" Sirius griped. "Where's Ted? I'm surrounded by Slytherins, and even if my only potential backup is a Hufflepuff, it's better than nothing."

"It is not _that_ far from the truth," Regulus admitted, though it was missing a few key details. "More true than kidnapping. The lack of communication is likely to be a problem, certainly, but better than making anyone think retaliation is in order. I don't intend to mention the two of you, but even if I claimed not to know who it was, it's a more challenging lie to maintain convincingly."

"It would be less dramatic," Andromeda agreed.

"Exactly! It needs drama. I blame myself. I really should have taught you to lie better," Sirius exclaimed woefully. "I'm a failure as a co-conspirator of mischief and older sibling."

"I've had quite enough drama in the past forty-eight hours," Regulus said dryly, leaning back against the window. "There is yet more to come, and I doubt I will need to embellish anything to achieve it."

"Hear hear," Andromeda replied, slipping back into the kitchen area. "And take your shoes off if you're going to put them on furniture, you spend half your time on farmland."

Sirius gave her a grimace, but complied by toeing them off. "So do I get to hear any of this plan?"

"There is not much more to tell at the moment," Regulus responded, turning his head slightly to look out the window. Barty's owl was long gone, of course, but his thoughts fell again to the letter. There was nothing physically stopping him from leaving to see Barty, from apparating home to his mother, from saying whatever he wanted to say to Lucretia, be it true or false or something in between.

Shaping their perception of his situation was his responsibility; and if he shaped it wrong, that was his responsibility, too…

"At this rate, it's going to take you a long time to get a plan together. Not by tomorrow." Sirius gave a heavy sigh. "If you decide to go ahead with it anyway, at least tell me what you're doing before you disappear again so I don't think you've been brutally murdered?"

Regulus looked back over at Sirius and nodded. "The plan for tomorrow is to go to Aunt Lucretia's for a visit, if she is available, and get some idea of the situation. The plan from there will depend on what that situation turns out to be. I don't want to be a Death Eater, but…" Regulus thought of the locket, of how difficult it was to monitor the Dark Lord's plans from the outside, and he frowned.

"What situation are you hoping for?" Sirius asked.

Regulus paused a beat before responding: "Truthfully, I'm not certain. The Dark Lord needs to be stopped, and I'm confident in that much. In light of that, I would like a scenario in which I can leave the Death Eaters and make everyone realize they ought to do the same... but at the same time, I learned something that may be important in stopping the Dark Lord that I would not have otherwise known, and I don't know how deep it goes." He shook his head. "If I throw away that trust, I don't know how it will change or potentially worsen… but I don't want to be involved, either. It's all contradictory…"

"So let me get this straight. You took Death Eating to an extracurricular level, which doesn't surprise me because you love extra work, but it meant you finding out sensitive information that may help putting Voldemort back in the bottle, but you don't know for sure. You don't want to say anything till you know for sure, but you don't know how to do that while still not only leaving but being supported in leaving and making other people leave by making the information public? But if you make it public, it can't be potentially used to take him down, so you have to choose between telling people what you know and hoping they'll make the right choice, thus crippling through numbers, or trying to confirm what you know, and then—what, you want to try taking him down by yourself?" Sirius said, waving his hands as he went on. "I respect that, it's absolutely something I would do, but because of that, it probably means it's a really stupid idea."

"You asked what I was hoping for—not what was easy and realistic," Regulus said, punctuated with a heavy sigh. "I know I can't tell the others what I found out, regardless, even to make the point. The risk of it getting back to him and triggering counteraction is too great, and this particular secret is precarious enough as it is." He thought of the note, then—a sentiment he still felt firmly, but he hoped nonetheless that the decoy illusion would hold out. The charm ought to be strong enough, if there is no reason to suspect it… "Any hope of information must precede suspicion, but waiting too long risks damage to my credibility." He huffed and added, a bit wryly, "Delicate timing, that's all."

"So the longer you're out of their sight, the longer they'll assume you've got full traitor instead of dipping your toe in," Sirius replied.

Regulus crinkled his nose. "Indeed. I cannot say what the window is, but I imagine it isn't very long…"

"Anyone but you?" Sirius shrugged. "About twenty-four hours."

Eyeing his brother, Regulus thought it was rather pointed, given that more than twenty-four hours had, in fact, passed already; but the extent of trouble it would cause was still yet to be seen. "Consistently avoiding suspicion in the past does permit more leeway, but I would rather not push it too far."

"I don't have a precise measurement," Sirius replied, "So you tell me if and when you figure that one out."

"We shall see, I suppose," Regulus said, a little distantly.

"What's the worst case?" Sirius asked, quietly.

There were so many ways it could go wrong, it was difficult to pinpoint just one. Regulus's frown deepened. "For the Dark Lord to realise too soon that his secret is not a secret and adjust for it, rendering my attempts pointless. To return home and still not be trusted, or to say something that upsets them and not be able to return to them at all. To feel obligated to participate past the point of comfort but to learn nothing new. To not return at all and discover later that the concern was more extensive than I am presently aware of, and it has escalated to an unmanageable state that dooms the wizarding world for the foreseeable future." Burying his hands in his sleeves, he added, "Mix and match as you please."

"The destruction of the wizarding world is your worst case scenario?" Sirius asked. "All of that is on you?"

"It isn't _only_ on me, of course," Regulus granted, "but that doesn't mean it isn't a possible result that would qualify as 'worst case.'"

"Which one of us is a vigilante again?" Sirius asked, pressing his hand across his face with a groan. "I think at this point, even I am confused."

"You're the one who asked," Regulus mumbled, a little uncomfortably. "I'm just being thorough."

"You can't anticipate half of the family's reactions, so you're trying to control every other possible variable and idea instead?" Sirius asked.

"I am trying to anticipate and minimise the damage instead of barrelling into it."

Sirius scrunched his face up. "And you have to do it alone?"

"The value of information immediately depreciates as soon as you start telling people the details, and perhaps more importantly, that information becomes harder to contain and protect," Regulus said matter-of-factly, shifting on his feet. "Information aside… there isn't much to be done, is there? I can't just bring someone in undercover with me, were I to attempt it, and I'm unable to think of anyone whose presence would convince them more readily to change their minds." He shook his head. "Even if I could, it's my problem to deal with."

"Wait, you're going to go undercover?" Sirius sat up against his knees. "You? You can't! You're a terrible liar! You couldn't even hold up to Mum asking where we'd been when we'd gone to the _park_! There has to be a way of doing it that doesn't risk you ending up becoming Dad's neighbour eighty years prematurely!"

"It seems evident that I'm probably going to die anyway," Regulus said, a little more tightly, trying to pretend he didn't feel a little twist of fear tugging in his stomach. Smothering it again, he tipped his chin with a flicker of stubbornness and thought to himself that the reiterated insult to his lying skills sounded more insulting this time than it had earlier. He could lie if it _mattered_... "I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but I'm trying to consider all of my options. I don't _want_ anything to do with it, but I don't want to lose the pulse on anything important either."

"You don't owe people your death anymore than you owe them your life. That's not—" Sirius swallowed audibly. "You might owe them something, but not that. Lets not over-dramatise. You're not going to let this kill you. You're too stubborn."

Staring hard at the floor, Regulus frowned for a silent beat. Sirius had never seemed to care that much if Regulus was around, in the past, but he felt a little bit guilty thinking it when Sirius did appear to be making more of an effort over the past two days. Perhaps 'better late than never' was the theme of the moment for both of them.

"I'm not trying to let anything kill me," he said quietly after the pause, freezing his expression against the clawing flashes in his mind. "I'm just trying to do whatever I need to do to fix it."

"The whole magical world?"

"Whatever I can," Regulus answered with a little shrug.

"To be willing to die for what you believe in is very noble," Sirius allowed. "As long as you don't actually die in the process. I'd have to find a way to bring you back just to yell at you for your own stupidity, and I don't think I should be messing with the forces of life and death."

"I'm not being stupid," Regulus countered, a tinge of argument in his tone. "Aren't you supposed to be glad I'm trying to help?"

"I am glad! Proud, even, that you're not half as stupid as I thought you were or as your old mates are." Sirius gave him two thumbs up. "I'm just also expressing a concern about you going back in there and not knowing what'll happen. Occasionally, even I like to have a some idea of what to plan for."

"I like to have a plan too," Regulus said, a little more emphatically. "I want them to understand the point I'm trying to make, but it just makes me think—there's only one opportunity to get a second look. Once you're a confirmed traitor, that is no longer an option," he said, though it was perhaps more to himself than his brother, and the train of thought kept tumbling out, forming in part, even as he said it. "If they don't realise my position, there's no reason to attack me right away. If I don't find anything, I could make the stance then; if I do find something, I can take it with me."

"I hope Aunt Lucretia speaks whatever language you do," Sirius said sincerely.

"He's saying he wants the chance to argue his case that a betrayal from the Death Eaters is not a family betrayal, but with evidence!" Andromeda called in from the kitchen, proving that she had been eavesdropping. She poked her head around from the nook. "Possibly some sort of presentation and bibliography. Time for pre-approved questions afterwards."

"Which would work better if your sister wasn't literally a Death Eater, Andromeda!" Sirius said sweetly.

"Let him argue his case. He has a right to present his terms and make himself open to agreement." Andromeda looked over Regulus with a critical eye. "Perhaps test his reflexes for ducking Unforgiveables, too. It doesn't hurt to prepare."

"Thank you, Andromeda. I have excellent reflexes," Regulus confirmed with a nod. "And I've been working on my Occlumency."

"Against Bellatrix?" Andromeda gave a dry laugh. "I remember that, she never did have many manners about it."

Pressing his lips, Regulus nodded.

"I highly recommend doing the song version of Babbitty Rabbitty in your head till she goes away," Andromeda said, cracking a smile. "I caught her humming it the next day. Serves her quite right for poking about."

Regulus felt his mouth turn up just a little at the corner. "I will keep that approach in mind," he said, trying to reduce the temptation to imagine it too clearly, lest the image pop into his mind later next time he saw his eldest cousin. He probably wasn't supposed to know it had happened, as far as Bella was concerned.

"Let me know if you want to try it," Andromeda said. "But don't try that with me. I'll have you singing nursery rhymes by bedtime."

"You can't send him along to Bellatrix," Sirius said. "Do I not get a say in this?"

"I've interacted with Bella before," Regulus said dryly, jutting up his chin. Frequently, at that, even if the vast majority of interactions across the past two years had made him feel varying degrees of anxious discomfort. He had managed.

"Yes, and I'm sure your sleeves need the hemming which proves it," Sirius replied. "You can't expect to have a civil discussion of the merits of telling Voldemort where to stuff it with her. Confrontation is not your strong point."

"Some people like to attempt to explain their behaviour in the hopes of being understood, no matter how unlikely," Andromeda replied. "Not everyone wants to jump out a window to escape their problems."

Sirius pushed himself forward sharply, fixing his eyes on her. "That was a cheap shot."

"Don't dish out uncomfortable commentary half the night if you can't take it in return," Andromeda replied. "Let him get on with it. While you're at it, should I be expecting any more of your friends to show up unannounced?"

"No," Sirius mumbled.

"All right then," Andromeda replied. "You can go back to ruining your posture."

Regulus gave his brother an additional pointed look as he finally returned to the chair, plucking his book from where he'd left it. It was a little bit satisfying to hear Andromeda deliver the remark—Sirius did not back down so effectively when it was _Regulus_ saying it, but it was well enough. Andromeda was not, perhaps, quite as biased as he had previously assumed, and although he did not typically like being wrong, he granted a flicker of a smile in her direction before approaching the chair again and nudging Sirius's feet over.

"There's other seats," Sirius griped.

"I was sitting here first."

Andromeda shook her head. "I've never felt so much as a slither of sympathy for my estranged aunt before this moment."

"Trust me, if I knew someone was playing my personal guard, I'd have requested anyone else." Sirius directed towards his brother. "I know some people you don't immediately spew bile at the sight of."

Regulus eyed him. Sirius seemed sincere enough, even if it sometimes felt as though Sirius did not care whether or not Potter acted like a complete cretin. Maybe this stroke of decency would last, maybe not, but he would accept it as it was, for now. "I would say 'maybe next time,' but I would rather avoid surprise visits altogether."

"From me as well?"

Regulus paused, shifting slightly as he opened the book again. "I have not minded your visits," he said, a little uncomfortably, though it felt a bit treacherous to admit.

"I could be bothersome so you won't miss my ever charming presence when you no longer have it," SIrius offered.

Regulus crinkled his nose a little, feeling a sting at the thought. "Your ever charming presence hasn't been around for three years. I will find a way to manage."

"It's closer to five if you count the last time it didn't end in an argument," Sirius replied, reaching over to tap the book. "Closer to one if you count school."

"I don't count school," Regulus said. "So I'll stick to three."

"Literally kids to adults," Sirius commented idly. "As adult as I get. There's no need to make a commentary on it."

Regulus glanced up at Sirius, then back down to his book with a half-shrug.

"Merlin, you're annoying." Sirius pulled himself to his feet then patted down his clothes, which were obviously not of magical origin. He raised his voice, "Where's your sprog?"

"It's after eight," Andromeda called back. "She's six. She's in bed."

"I bet she's not," Sirius said.

"Even if she isn't, you can't go up and encourage it." Andromeda replied. "If you want to see her, get out of bed earlier and see her during the day. You won't combust if you go out in daylight hours."

"I have to sleep some time." Sirius replied. "I have...stuff to do at night."

"Try not to get killed doing 'stuff' then," Andromeda replied. "Unless it was a 'nineteen-year-old boy left unsupervised' stuff."

"That would be nice, wouldn't it?" Sirius said. "But no, it is definitely the not getting killed stuff. Let me know what happens with Lucretia?"

"I will."

"I'm going, then!" Sirius announced, swiftly followed by a crack of apparition and the sounds of 'most people say _goodbye_ but no, it appears we must adhere to melodrama' being muttered from the kitchen area.

The room fell silent once Sirius had left and Andromeda had returned to her business in the kitchen. Dropping his eyes again, Regulus settled his attention on the book and let his mind drift to Barty again. The tone of the letter had been concerned but not precisely alarmed, and he imagined the look of mild relief his friend might don, were Regulus to go home.

Maybe it was suicide to go home; maybe it was suicide not to. Maybe it was worth it to try and learn more about the horcruxes; maybe it would only make things worse. His mind spun on with endless possibilities and their endless consequences, but there was no clear answer, no script to follow, and the thought of making the wrong choice was almost as unsettling as the consequences themselves.

As it was, he had two letters to write.

* * *

Mission objective: find James Potter, tell him that sticking his oar in after specifically saying he'd let Sirius himself handle it for a few days isn't on, and then depending on how much of a pillock he is about it, give a vague thank you for trying to look out for him. If he's a total pillock, remind him of those certain photographs he says Don't Exist and how they currently don't exist hidden in his room and may come into Existence at any time if he decides he wants to humiliate him by treating Sirius's own tiny, ickle brother as a legitimate _threat_. Also, he probably still has the outfit somewhere. It might be buried under his broom, but also possibly in the storage in the basement. What Remus calls a bloody mess, he likes to think of it as aesthetically chaotic.

It turned out he didn't need to go looking about Lily Evans's—Lily Potter's, if that wasn't weird enough—skirt pleats for him. He could see him sitting at the mixed matched round dining table at the end of the hall the moment he stepped through the door. Despite the fact he kept talking, Sirius was sure he knew he was there. There was that sudden flick there and back, a slight stutter to the story he was currently telling about him and Peter trying to watch over the post office in Diagon and somehow the owls mysteriously all getting out at once. He'd heard it, but whether Remus had was up for debate; there'd been a few werewolf related ravagings about the north, and he always got quiet and sullen around that. Oh, he had a book open. Yeah, that meant Remus had heard the story but was being polite and not telling James. He probably wasn't even reading.

"Can I have a word?" Sirius asked, cutting James off mid-flow about how he's still finding feathers in his robes.

"Fandangle," James responded instantly. "I've always liked that one."

Smug bastard. Sirius could _feel_ himself grinning, and he knew it was exactly why. He was impossible to stay angry with, especially when he probably means well.

"Should I be making myself scarce?" Remus asked, looking from one to the other.

"I dunno," Sirius said. "What's with you tattling on me?"

Remus had the decency to look guilty for a moment, before he squared himself. "You received an owl from a Death Eater and barely stopped long enough to talk to me. I was worried."

"Regulus," Sirius corrected.

"Who is a Death Eater," Remus said quietly. "You can't possibly have an objective opinion about this."

"Says who?" Sirius didn't think he needed to be all that objective about this. It was Regulus; he could always take him. They'd be ninety, and he'd still be able to do it. Still, he resented the idea that he couldn't make up his own mind as to whether he needed back up.

"You should have owled me," James said. "Just because baby Black felt like playing happy families-"

"-Merlin, we'd never been anything so lower class as _happy_ -"

"-You don't know who else was involved." James smiled at him tightly. "Forethought isn't your strong point, mate. We're just looking out for you."

"You're being insufferable," Sirius replied. "This is my little brother-"

"-Is he?" Remus interrupted.

Sirius looked at him blankly.

Remus pressed his lips together, and cast his eyes down. "It's just you can't seem to decide whether you have a brother or not. Last month, you were adamant you didn't."

Was it a night for people to take petty shots at him or something? "Don't dig into me because a bunch of furry enemies up north can't keep their teeth to themselves," he snapped.

Even as the comment landed, Sirius fought the desire to grimace. Even if he wasn't happy with them conspiring like a couple of old biddies about him, the sudden flush and _look_ Remus gave him clued him in that he'd likely crossed some kind of line.

Remus stood up slowly, and purposefully. "I think I'll take an early night," he said, tightly. The words were barely out of his mouth before he was past Sirius's shoulder and to his own room. He didn't slam the door. Sirius would've. It only look a look to James, who was giving him one of those expressions that somehow said 'I know you're in a mood, but that wasn't okay' _and_ looked vaguely impressed he'd managed to cause an argument that quickly. Sirius's special skill. Thanks, Mum. The practice did wonders.

"I'll talk to him later," Sirius said, leaning on front of one of the dining chairs. James just nodded. "I'm still pissed off with you. You're sticking your oar in, and you said you'd leave me to it."

"You were exaggerating," James replied. "He's a bit roughed up, but I've seen you in worse shape after a couple of drinks at the Leaky."

"He's not me," Sirius replied. He'd always had thicker skin. He could always take a punch, and land one back harder. Regulus had always been soft to his core. He was never going to last in the Death Eaters, but having him realise that was important enough that it deserved a chance to develop.

"No, you chose to tell them they were all bonkers, and he signed up to play lap dog." James said. "You're not responsible for his choices."

"You don't understand," Sirius replied. He was an only child. It was different. "You've never had someone to be responsible for."

"Who're you then?" James scoffed. "I drag your arse out of the fire enough, don't I?"

Sirius couldn't argue with that. It was true, with everything from school to the Order. "You're not responsible for me," he said.

"Excuse me, then why does everyone always ask me where you are?" James asked.

Sirius considered it. "Do you know when they ask?"

"...That is not the point." James huffed. "Look, when people want something off you, they ask me to ask you because I'm the Sirius whisperer and you'll say yes if-"

Sirius stopped him with a bark of laughter."The what?"

"Mate, you are not an approachable person!" James suddenly smiled, the kind that also threatened to burst into laughter. "McGonagall, Dumbledore, sure, they were our professors, but someone else? They ask me because I'm friendly, and I won't bite their heads off if I'm in a shitty mood."

"I don't do that," Sirius said. James pointed to Remus's door, then merely looked at him. "All right, sometimes I do that. But you're impossible to stay pissed off with. It's your superpower."

"My superpower is my magnetic good looks and talent, and I think you know that!" James declared.

"Oh, sorry, my mistake," Sirius put up his hands. "Wait, why am I apologising? I'm mad at _you_."

"Superpowers," James winked.

"You're infuriating." Oh Merlin's saggy _balls_ , what was that? Where did that come from and how did he get rid of it? From the shit-eating grin on James's face, he'd heard it too. He was doomed. He should just lay down on the floor and beg the ground to swallow him.

" _You're infuriating_ ," James replied, in a high pitched mockery of the horror that had just happened. "Wow, I'd forgotten your old accent. Didn't even think about it when I heard the baby Black or Andromeda. At least she's a lady, she can pull it off. Are you going to start talking all hoity-toity again? Is this what happens when I leave you alone with your possibly-was-possibly-still-definitely-still an arse baby brother? You're going to pick up your bad habits? Are you going to abandon your muggle robes? Start wearing an ascot again?"

Sirius hid his face in his hands. "Just kill me," he whined.

"Far too merciful," James said.

Sirius lowered his hands with a huff. "Since you're passing judgement, what do you think?"

"You don't want to know what I think," James replied. "You want me to say I'll support you if you bring this to McGonagall because you know you'll have to. Or he'll go home, and nothing'll change, and this will just be the funny weekend that Sirius talked like his robes were bunched too tight."

He was so annoying when he was right. "Will you?"

"Course I will," James replied. "I just won't like it."

"I don't like it either," Sirius replied. "He's going around my old Aunt Lucretia's. She's never been all that into the war aspects. Tends to want to be left alone with a good book."

"What can she do?" James asked.

"See if the mentality that their _Dark Lord_ is a charlatan can take off," Sirius replied. "You have to admit. That would be useful."

"I swear I've heard that name before," James muttered. "That's not the one married to my dad's second cousin, is it?"

"No, that one's dead, this one's married to Fabian and Gideon's uncle, Quidditch mad," Sirius replied, automatically. He then tapped his head with his wand. "Why do I know that? So much useless bloody information. My head is full of stupid shit."

"Like thinking the Magpies are a good team," James replied, nastily.

"Get out," Sirius glared at him, "I am not above thumping you."


	4. Home is Where the Consequences Are

**Chapter 4: Home is Where the Consequences Are**

* * *

In his mind, Regulus had turned over the impending conversation with his Aunt Lucretia several times before ever stepping foot into her home in Cornwall, but right from the start, he could feel his confidence snagging in his throat. Around him, everything was paler than in his own home, lighter browns cast in light, and a collection of crystals displayed along the length of the hallway were catching occasional rays from outside as they passed. He did not visit his aunt and uncle very often, but there was a reassuring familiarity that settled in after several days off-kilter at Andromeda's. Usually, the neatness of every sparsely decorated shelf was very relaxing… but even he could still feel she's writing heavily in his shoulders, those anxieties were not the fault of the decor.

Hair half-piled up on her head as it was, he guessed that his aunt might have gone out earlier in the day - to lunch, perhaps, which was not too far past. Never one for the ostentatious, her robes were not excessively fancy, but certainly of finer design than a day at the house often called for.

"Ignatius will be home soon," she told him as she led him towards the study. Eyeing him up and down, she added, "You look well."

There was a keenness to the question as Aunt Lucretia fixed her dark eyes on him - a contrast to the grey of his own, and to those of his late father, though their resemblance had been otherwise strong… Their resemblance and dispositions, alike. Several days had passed since Regulus had left for the cave, but he supposed she was taking care with her words, just as he was.

"I've been reflecting, thinking about the next stage," he began carefully.

"An apt time for reflection," Lucretia granted. A few paces away, Lucretia was settling into the overstuffed chair nearest the window, not so unlike the one his father favoured - _had_ favoured - back at home, but this one was not so dark a shade of brown. "Your mother was asking after you."

A little blip of anxiety seized in his chest, but he could not read much in his aunt's expression.

"I just needed some time to myself."

She nodded, expression softening just a little. "I can understand that. It has been a… difficult year." She gestured for him to sit in the chair nearest hers, and he did so. "But I must ask: Is there a reason you didn't say anything?"

There were a great many reasons, and he could scarcely figure out how to verbalise any of them. "I just felt… overwhelmed, I suppose, by the thought of speaking to anyone." It sounded weak to say as much, but he supposed it must have been the right thing to say, because Aunt Lucretia just nodded. "I meant to send a note, but it must not have made it home." A lie, but she nodded again in what looked like acceptance of the excuse… or at least a pardon of the offense.

"Orion would wander off like that, sometimes. Completely in his own world, no spare thought for the possibility that someone might be wondering where he was," she said with a sad sort of fondness. "You do remind me of him. I'm certain you've heard it more times than you can count."

Regulus had, but he liked to hear it again, despite the pang. Months had passed since his father had been caught in a poorly executed Diagon Alley bombing, yet that pang of sadness was no less mixed with a rush of anger that he tried to stonewall off of his face. When he flicked his eyes up to hers, she was frowning.

"If I've said something-"

He shook his head and cut in: "It's not that. It just doesn't seem fair, what happened." He held her look, and it was only when he saw the distaste subtly mirrored in her eyes that he continued, "Or how it happened."

"That's because it isn't," she said a little bit tightly. She forced a relatively unconvincing smile, then, but he doubted it was supposed to be. "So much for the benefits of keeping one's head down. Your father rarely looked up for anything."

"Irresponsible, all of it," Regulus said. He could still feel the intensity of her stare as he thumbed at the fabric of his sleeve, though he wasn't looking at her anymore. His resolve staggered: slow and steady - subtle. Since his father's funeral, he had barely seen his family at all. School had pulled him back, and no one had been willing to show a crack in their stony acceptance. He saw one now - and perhaps that crack could be enough, if he was patient.

Sucking in a slow breath, he glanced over at the book sitting on the table beside her chair. "What are you reading?"

Her manner shifted slightly, relaxing into the comfort of the subject matter. "Theoretical applications of magic to musical mediums. The current chapter is dissecting the Siren's song. I read it some time ago, but I do enjoy it."

Allowing a small smile to lift the corners of his mouth, Regulus nodded, and he was preparing to press further when he heard the clop of shoes on wood flooring, just outside the door, followed immediately by his Uncle Ignatius peeking in.

"Ah, and there he is, our elusive young graduate," his uncle said, to which Aunt Lucretia gave him a look but said nothing. "Congratulations are in order, though none of us doubted you for a moment. Will you be staying long?"

"I do have some time," Regulus admitted.

"Splendid," Uncle Ignatius said as someone else appeared behind him. One of the Prewetts, if Regulus was correct in his memory. They had the same auburn hair, though it had been some time since the Prewetts had frequented Society events, outside of his uncle's attendance with Aunt Lucretia. As a general rule, the Prewetts were rather more neutral than the majority of families in their immediate circle, but with the exception of one of his uncle's Prewett nieces - who married a Weasley, shame as it was - the rest seemed decent enough… There was little time to get much of a read on him before Uncle Ignatius continued: "Lu, access to your library has been requested, if he may?"

"He may," she said, tipping her head.

"The two of you have met, yes?" Uncle Ignatius said, gesturing between the two of them, but it was the other who spoke first.

"I think so, but it's been a decade or so." The man looked over him, a flicker of an unexplained smile coming and going in an instant. "Gideon, if you were thinking 'which one is that'? Lots of people do, despite us not being identical. Congratulations on finishing school in one piece."

Gideon, it was - Gideon Prewett. He was at least a few years older than Regulus was, closer to his cousins' ages, though Regulus knew little else about him. "Thank you," he responded politely, silently thinking that remaining in one piece was perhaps a more challenging feat this last year than most would assume.

"You were the captain, weren't you?" Gideon asked, politely. "I still keep up with the quidditch more than I like to admit."

Regulus nodded, eyeing him. As far as he knew, Gideon Prewett had finished school before Regulus even started, but he could understand the interest in continuing to follow the progress. His own curiosity would undoubtedly persist, on behalf of his house... "I was."

"Lu," his uncle said during the beat of silence, "would you help me hunt down the topics Gideon is looking for?" To Regulus, he added, "As for you, don't go anywhere - I would like to hear more about the conclusion of your quidditch run, too."

Regulus nodded. He had scarcely processed his captainship in light of everything else that had been happening all year - being a Death Eater, his father's death, NEWTs, continuing prefectship, the horcruxes - but quidditch was at least one discussion point that was more fun than miserable.

Out of the corner of his eye, Regulus could see his Aunt Lucretia rise from her chair, and when he looked up, she tipped a little nod. "If you will excuse me - we will be back shortly."

Silently, Regulus felt a mild panic rise up at the prospect of being left to navigate the conversation without their buffering contributions - but at least the safety of quidditch discussion had been initiated already.

"Did you play, as well?" Regulus asked, once his aunt and uncle had slipped out of the room again.

"No, I'm strictly a watcher. I tried out a couple of times, but I was never the best there. My brother played." Gideon raised both hands in a mockery of defeat. "I'm sorry to come in interrupting your time. I've been in a scramble; our usual riddle quest leader is out sick, so I need to come up with a new puzzle for the group to solve in two days while being three members down. I thought there might be something obscure here."

Subtly, Regulus's expression shifted to one of curiosity; as much as he loved quidditch, he loved puzzles at least as much, if not more. "Riddle quest leader?"

"Yes!" Gideon smiled with an obvious enthusiasm. "It's this group of us who know each other through work, school, friends of friends. We get together once a fortnight, someone is assigned the leader, and we have to solve the riddle before midnight. For example, we had a warding one a few weeks ago. You have a place made accessible to all magical people through blood magic, but one night, someone unexpectedly passes through these charms. However, they are not able to pass back again the next day and are currently trapped. Why were they able to pass through one night, but not the next?"

Some of the knotted stress loosened as Regulus flicked a small smile back, expression turning thoughtful. "A curious question, indeed... perhaps some neutralisation or dampening artifact - counteracting wards with directed, one-way effects - perhaps even a measure of time sensitivity, as I suppose it does not specify if it was only the next day or every day to come." Shaking his head, he added, "Do you know yet which magical discipline you will be using as a basis?"

"Runic," Gideon said. "I don't think we have any runes specialists, so it should be challenging. Don't fancy it, do you? We could use the numbers, and you did automatically try and solve the example."

Runes _were_ quite interesting in their own right, even when they weren't tied to a riddle. On the one hand, there was some measure of uncertainty in wandering blind into a group of unfamiliar people - after all, Regulus had never branched far beyond the small group of friends and acquaintances he had known since he was a small child - but on the other hand, it was not the sort of thing that most of his friends enjoyed very much, with the exception of Barty. Gideon seemed reasonable enough, and perhaps the mental stimulation could spark more ideas in respect to the horcruxes…

Regulus paused for a thoughtful beat. Though he had not yet determined exactly how he was going to clean up his Situation at home in a manner that was deemed permissible, Lucretia had accepted it well enough, and there was no fallout associated with the Prewetts themselves. Neutrality had its place - and if he was honest, any sliver of neutrality sounded comforting, with the extremes he could already see coming. "Intriguing, I will admit."

"There's no obligation, but it's fun bit of cloak and dagger." Gideon looked him over, but then hesitated for a moment. "As long you're inquisitive, polite, and punctual, you're welcome."

Regulus dipped his chin in a little nod. "I aim to be all of those things. If it is not an intrusion, I would be curious to see it in action."

"Brilliant. Then I won't tell you anything more about the puzzle so you'll have more fun trying to solve it," Gideon replied. "We have occasionally done it so you have to solve the location to get to it, but we're doing the backroom of the Leaky this week since we're smaller."

"In two days, yes?" Regulus clarified. "What time will you be meeting?"

"Eight," Gideon replied, distractedly. "We're punctual starters, if only because one of our newest hasn't got the punctuality part down yet, and penalising it is the only way he's going to learn."

For a moment, Regulus eyed him, trying to get a solid read on his manner. The distraction did not look like immediate regret, so perhaps Gideon was the scattered type, or perhaps it was a matter of thoughts turning over in respect to the rune puzzle to come. Regulus's own mind threatened to reel with the fact that he did not know what might happen before that meeting occurred in two days' time, especially in respect to his mother - but at least it was unlucky that they would lock him in his room for punishment. "I shall look forward to it."

"Then I think I'll be a bit on the impertinent side and go find my uncle, or save him from the mountain of books he must be trapped under," Gideon decided. "Time is of the essence. I need to get back to work."

Silently, Regulus thought to himself that Ignatius was his uncle too, if not by blood, but he opted instead to bite back the thought and simply nod. The a-pleasure-talking-with-you exchanges were brief, and Gideon slipped out to receive his requested texts without much delay. By the time his aunt and uncle returned to the room alone, Regulus had settled in with one of the books from the shelf.

Quidditch, NEWTs, the books he was interested in at the moment… such chatter did nothing for his present cause, but at the very least, it was nice to feel normal again, if only for a short visit.

* * *

The noise of the buzzer drove Sirius from his bed down the stairs to the bottom floor, only catching his toe on the inside of the pyjama bottom and almost breaking his neck once. If that wasn't an indicator of pure skill, he didn't know what was. Opening the door, he gave a few owlish blinks.

"Afternoon," said Gideon Prewett, before he seemed to stop and take stock of Sirius. "Are you wearing pyjamas?"

"Yes," Sirius said. It'd been his patrol night, so he'd had all of two hours of consecutive sleep, and he wasn't in the mood at all to answer dumb questions. Someone had better be dying.

Out whipped a pocket watch. "It's almost three," Gideon said, as if this statement somehow justified his confusion.

Sirius didn't enjoy feeling judged at the best of times, and since he had time to be rude about Sirius's appearance, it was unlikely anyone was dying. As such, he shut the door and walked back up the stairs to the flat.

Remus was standing in the hallway. "What was that?"

"Someone rude," Sirius replied.

A look of alarm struck Remus. "Death Eater?" He was already reaching for his wand.

"Almost as bad," Sirius replied. "Judgemental ginger."

Remus stared at him for a long moment. Then the buzzer sounded again, and he was going to kill his past-self for deciding such a muggle novelty would be fun. Past him was a moron. Remus put down his cup on the side table, then descended the stairs. Sirius picked up the cup and padded to their overstuffed couch. He pulled his feet up under him while he listened to the murmur of conversation that must have been Gideon and Remus coming up the stairs.

"-think he's house trained, there's something new," Remus was saying. He reached for where he'd set down his cup but grasped at thin air. Sirius saluted him with it. It wasn't sweet enough for him, but aside from that, the look of anguish was well worth that. "Or manners. We don't have those either."

Gideon was half-laughing - either at Remus, who was now taking up the quest for more coffee with periodic glares in Sirius's general direction, or he was just amused in general. "I've had worse, don't worry."

"Order business?" Remus asked.

"Peripherally," Gideon replied. "We're still having the meeting on Saturday. Caradoc has passed it over to me, so I've picked up some decoding books, and we've got a few dark object warnings to decode."

"I thought we were going to leave it this week," Remus said as he added more milk than anyone should rightly want in a drink that wasn't milk. "Since Alice is sick, I signed up to take some extra patrol shifts."

"That's alright," Gideon replied mildly. "I thought you might when I heard Lily was covering her. I just wanted to make sure you didn't think you were unwelcome after last time."

"What happened last time?" Sirius asked. He didn't have a whole lot to do with the Ravenclaw Rebellion, nor their swotty study groups, but Remus liked to go. He hadn't mentioned anything amiss.

"It wasn't anything," Remus said.

Gideon looked contrite. "I doubt he meant anything by it."

"Of course not," Remus said, same even tone.

"By what?" Sirius asked.

"The answer to the riddle a few weeks ago on ward navigation," Remus said, his tone far too careful for Sirius's liking. "The answer was werewolf."

"It was just Benjy thinking he was clever," Gideon said, quickly. "He wasn't being a git, he just doesn't think."

"We have some experience in that area," Remus said. He was obviously not that alright with it, but that was Remus for you. He'd forgive almost anything.

"What was the question?" Sirius asked.

"What can pass through a blood ward which excludes people one night, but cannot return across the next," Gideon replied. "A transformed werewolf could breach the ward on the way in but wouldn't be able to breach it again until the next full moon."

"Animagi," Sirius said, briefly catching Remus's eye.

"Can turn back into an animal at any point," Remus replied. "Why would they not just transform again to get across?"

"Hmm," Sirius said, more to make a noise of acknowledgement than to add anything to it. "Why were you doing werewolf riddles?"

"It's a good group," Gideon said, with a touch of defensiveness. "It helps us assess if someone is good Order material. Someone joined a few months back, and I think Dumbledore's going to ask him soon. Either way, it provides a way to study magic we need to breach – cursed objects, codes, wards, obscure spellwork, curses we may not know the best way to remove."

"What happens if he says no?" Sirius asked. "Doesn't that ruin your group?"

"Well, no. I think he'd say nothing either way." Gideon nodded his head to one side. "We do also keep a forgetfulness draught on hand for those conversations. Even without membership, new perspectives help us."

"I'll stick to fighting them," Sirius replied. Why someone would willingly put themselves in a situation they had to be careful not to mention the Order in with only a few people who weren't members, he had no idea. He guessed they managed it around the tower for a couple of years, but that felt different somehow. "I'll take your shift if you want to go."

Remus shook his head. "You've done two already this week, and you have a...situation, to be dealing with."

"That sounds pretty ominous," Gideon asked, swinging around to look at him.

"That's because Remus has a flair for dramatics," Sirius replied.

However, Gideon did not return his attention to Remus. If anything, the staring got a bit uncomfortable.

Sirius responded by pinning him with a look. "I know I'm a work of art, Prewett, but there's no need to gape."

"No, that's not what-" Gideon stopped himself. Biggest tell between siblings: Fabian could talk your ear off. "I'm just noticing the resemblance is stronger than I realised."

"I know it looks like I'm related to everyone," Sirius replied. "I'm not related to Remus. Thanks to my dearest mother, I can still do ten generational branches in my sleep from muscle memory."

"No, but I needed a better library for decoding," Gideon replied. "So I went to see Uncle Ignatius."

"You're saying I look like my former aunt?" Sirius said. He hoped his voice was steadier than it felt, because he had the feeling that wasn't what Gideon was saying at all.

"No," Gideon lifted his hand dismissively. "Actually, yes, a little, but I meant your brother. He was there when I got there."

"Really," Remus said, looking to Sirius. He was so clearly thinking about Sirius saying Regulus had left, and being at Lucretia's did not look like leaving. It looked like supplicating himself.

In reality, given what they'd talked about, it was more of a negotiation of staying, but Sirius had chosen not to relay that. The last thing he wanted was being tattled on again, even if only to James. Putting his brother and his best mate in a room was like putting a lit wand near a fireplace and expecting it not to go on fire.

"I did ask him if he wanted to take Caradoc's seat for the night," Gideon replied. "Just as a trial run. He was very quick at the problem solving."

Remus practically spilled his coffee over the table. "At the meet up?"

"Not everyone is an Order member, but I think he'd have some interesting insights. You may both have had an upbringing that lends itself to understanding dark magic, but you have no patience. Dorcas wanted to string you up when you tried it." It's not as if Gideon was wrong about that. "It could be valuable, and he was polite enough. Unless there's something I should know."

 _That you invited a baby Death Eater to an Order dominant research party, presumably without telling him as such?_ But he had left. He had. He didn't want to be there. He was even currently cohabiting with a muggleborn.

"Not that I can think of," Sirius said.

"If it doesn't work out, no harm done." Gideon replied. "Unless there's bad blood I should know about?"

"I'm a Black," Sirius said. "All of the blood is bad."

"You know what I mean," Gideon said, looking back to Remus, who was ferociously grasping his cup. "Will it be a problem for you?"

"I won't be at this one," Remus replied.

"If he chooses to go again," Gideon offered.

"There's no conflict from me," Remus said tightly. "But that doesn't mean I'm not a conflict. I believe Severus Snape let it be known after school what I was. I have no idea how that went."

"He can't say much," Sirius said. "He deals with my old mum, so he's got plenty of experience dealing with dark creatures, and you're only that once a month. It's not as if you turn up to the rebellion when you're furry, is it?"

Gideon groaned. "Is that name catching on? You do know we have as many Gryffindors as Ravenclaws, don't you?"

"Blame James, it was his idea," Sirius said. "We've all collectively agreed he's not allowed to name things anymore. We took a vote."

"See what happens at the meeting," Remus said. "Dorcas, especially. Then see where we go from there?"

"If nothing else, it might help keep him from any other cloak and dagger things," Gideon replied. "I'll fill you in after the Order meeting next week. Drink at the Hog's Head?"

"Try not to get banned, I like Abe's," Sirius said. "Remus is such a rowdy drunk. It's always the quiet ones you want to watch out for."

* * *

Regulus was still turning the Prewetts over in his mind when he returned to Andromeda's that night. His mother had reached out to Aunt Lucretia, from the sound of it. Though it made sense - after all, it was not as though he expected his absence to go unnoticed - he wished he could have known what she had said, how she'd acted, anything of the sort without having to ask… but his aunt had not offered any such details.

Regulus had already resolved himself to return home that night, but the reality of facing his mother made his stomach lurch, and he'd scarcely eaten, cosying himself up by the window and watching the sun sink below the trees as he tried to imagine what she was doing. Was Kreacher helping ease her concerns? Was she reading, listening to the wireless, eating, calling an exceptionally early night? Had Aunt Lucretia said anything? Would his mother be expecting him - and would that make it easier or more difficult?

For some time, he had been locked silently in place with arms crossed under his chin, and the sun has long set now. Andromeda's daughter had been sent off to bed, but even if she hadn't been, he could recognise that the footsteps behind him weren't the frantic patterings of a child. Rather, it was the sound of Andromeda's telltale heels, ceasing when she joined him at the window. She smoothed down the seat before sitting carefully on it, and for a long moment, she chose not to speak. She simply looked out onto the darkening night without commentary.

"I need to go home tonight," Regulus said to the window pane, looking at his own face reflecting back in the glass.

"I guessed that," Andromeda replied, her tone even. "Do you also want to?"

"I want to figure out how to make things right," he answered, thinning his mouth.

"If you'll pardon my impertinence," Andromeda said quietly, "but what is right to you?"

His eyes flicked to the side, catching her reflection in the glass just briefly before looking back to his own. "I'm trying to do what I can to help stop the Dark Lord - and trying not to put everyone around me in imminent danger at the same time."

"Made rather trickier by the same person being both potential threat and potentially in danger at the same time," Andromeda replied, dryly. "I'm well aware you did not choose to come here, but that makes me no less happy that I had the chance to see you."

Tapping a finger lightly on his elbow, he tightened his crossed arms, just a little. Amidst all the anxieties of the past few days, it had been a haven of sorts, a quiet place to try to straighten his thoughts again, but when he tried to say as much, the words caught in his throat, so he simply nodded.

"You know where we are now." Andromeda added softly. "The door is not shut. You know that, don't you? If things become...difficult, again."

With a little pang, Regulus nodded again. Difficult. He had very little doubt that things were about to become very difficult again, but the more sincere she was, the more guilty he felt for involving her at all. Some other part of him dared to argue that she had left, that traitors automatically set themselves up for involvement, but the emotion fell flat, just as soon as it rose up. She had never preferred him, and he knew that, but she had given him a safe place to be when she did not need to - had opened herself to involvement, however indirect. None of them were supposed to be - just himself in the cave, that had been the plan, but every moment just heightened the complications.

"Thank you," he said, her quiet tone mirrored in his own.

"It's never as easy as it looks. I don't regret my choices, though I occasionally am saddened by the consequences of them." Andromeda reached out, and patted his shoulder. "The Dark Arts have their uses, but don't lose your soul to them. Or Bellatrix, for that matter. Though if you force me to move, I will have to murder you just a little bit."

"You will have to get in the queue, should it come to that," Regulus said in a half mumble, shifting slightly with a little huff. "But consider it noted, all the same."

"You should try to eat something before you do," Andromeda said. "Facing your mother on an empty stomach sounds like a terrible idea."

Though he still did not feel particularly hungry, he nodded.

"I'll heat something up," Andromeda said, after it became clear he wasn't going to say anything else. "Please let Sirius in if he chooses to grace us with his presence when I'm gone."

"Will he be coming tonight?" Regulus asked, turning slightly to look at her as she started walking to the kitchen.

"He wasn't here last night, so there's a good chance. I've seen more of him this week than I have all year." Andromeda shrugged. "I don't know whether to blame you or thank you on that front."

"It's more than I've seen him in closer to three," Regulus said, looking out the window again, "so I'm not certain which is more appropriate, either."

"It depends on whether you were happy to see him or not," Andromeda suggested.

"Not usually," Regulus admitted.

"I imagine that will make it easier to return home, then," Andromeda noted. "You won't have to put up with him thinking the early hours of the morning is an appropriate time to ring the doorbell or clamber about."

Confusion knitted his brow, but Regulus quickly realised she must have been referring to the past few days, not years… a thought followed by the admittance that those two spans should not have such a sharp distinction between them, but strangely, they did. Since the cave, he had not minded Sirius's disruptive presence - had in fact felt a familiar comfort as they fell back to an older pattern. In some way, it almost felt like the two of them were just home from Hogwarts over the summer holiday, passing amicably in the night, temporarily suspending the fact that they were supposed to be fighting on principle…

Andromeda had disappeared fully into the kitchen, and Regulus was still mulling over his thoughts when he heard the front door swing open of its own - or rather, of his brother's - accord.

"Do you know what the little semi-circle on my door is?" Andromeda called in from the kitchen area.

"Yes?" Sirius replied.

"What has it done to you that you prefer to break and enter?" Andromeda called.

"I didn't break and enter, nothing is broken," Sirius said, now knocking on the door lightly. "I opened and entered."

"Next time, don't complain if you get hexed for your trouble," Andromeda said.

"I never do," Sirius said, as he finally fixed his eyes on his brother. He took a few steps over the window, looking out it. "Why are you waiting at the window like an ailing maiden awaiting her sweetheart to return from war?"

Silently, Regulus amended his previous sentiment. Perhaps sometimes, he did not care for his brother's presence, even now.

"I'm not," Regulus countered with a twinge of annoyance.

"Then what are you looking at?" Sirius asked.

"I was thinking," he corrected.

Sirius huffed a laugh. "Do you ever not?"

"Better to think than the alternative," Regulus said dryly, then shook his head. "I visited Aunt Lucretia this afternoon. I'm just mentally preparing myself to return home, I suppose."

"So it went alright then," Sirius responded, shortly. "No one's that bothered you're not keen on murdering people."

Uncomfortably, Regulus paused a beat before answering. "I do not expect to resolve this so quickly. Rushing will completely undermine any hope I have of accomplishing anything."

"What do you imagine will change by waiting?" Sirius asked. "If there was ever a thing to be blunt about, this would be it."

"There is more at stake than my comfort or their opinions," Regulus said, lining his tone with a sense of assurance he did not entirely feel, true though it was. "I intend to tell them... I just need to do something first."

"Tell them the first time," Sirius corrected. "You're soft in the head if you think you won't have to say it over and over for what you're saying to even sink in, let alone whether or not you actually believe it."

"I do believe it," Regulus began, a bit defensively, "but timing is important. There are some things I can only investigate if they are not suspicious - and I will be suspicious enough, already."

"Investigate," Sirius said, dubiously. "Would this be related to what they're going to try and off you over?"

Regulus nodded. They did not know what he had done yet, but it would be, were they to figure it out. "It's important."

"Perhaps you should ask Mum for a sick note," Sirius suggested. "Must be excluded from homicidal and sadistic missions, due to his nervous disposition. We've gone through ten unraveled sleeves this year alone."

"You are being insulting right now, but I do wish it was that easy." Pressing his lips to a line Regulus shook his head.

"I would pay good money to hear our dear old mum send Voldemort a howler," Sirius said, laughing suddenly.

The absurdity of it broke through the tension, and a wry, slightly uncomfortable smile flicked at the corner of his mouth. It was not going to happen, and it was more than a little irreverent but it was the least miserable train of thought. "I will keep you updated."

Sirius cracked a smile. "I can't talk you out of it?"

"I have to try while the window is still open," Regulus said with resolve.

"What happens next time you're supposed to hurt someone?" Sirius asked.

Regulus frowned, insides twisting. "Perhaps I will manage to wriggle out of it; perhaps I will lose my window of trust." (Or perhaps he would falter.) Regulus shook his head again. "Hopefully I will be able to find something quickly," he said, despite the miserable fact that he had no idea what he was looking for - or if there was anything else to look for at all...

"Innocent lives are a high cost to gamble on," Sirius said, quietly.

"I don't want to hurt anyone," Regulus said honestly - paused for just a beat - then corrected, "with the exception of stopping the Dark Lord, but that is rather more indirect, I suppose."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "I don't mind if you hurt him! I'll happily encourage you to take a swing at him."

"I'm trying to avoid a killing curse to the face."

"You're small," Sirius said. "He might miss."

"That is not a matter of smallness, but rather one of agility," Regulus said, flatly, "demonstrated most notably in your inability to hit me with a bludger."

"You were pretending I didn't exist," Sirius said, cocking his head. "I was just returning the favour."

"Effective quidditch strategy, as it turns out."

"When you want Hufflepuff to win," Sirius replied, darkly.

"They didn't win at quidditch, just the house cup," Regulus corrected. Gryffindor and Slytherin had found more motivation for point-taking than usual, the year Regulus had become prefect (or more importantly, the year Sirius had left)... Yet as embarrassing as that year had been, he had to admit some part of him had cared more about Gryffindor losing than he did Slytherin winning, at the time, if it came to that. He decided not to say as much. "We won quidditch that year."

"And we won it the next," Sirius replied. "But this is no game. You've been at school. Do you even know what it's like out there right now?"

He lifted his shoulder in a small shrug. "The battles are chaotic, if that's what you mean," Regulus said with a frown. "I know it's not a game…"

"I'm not talking about battles. The battles don't happen that often." Sirius let loose a long breath. "I'm talking about the people who are missing. The massacres where a bunch of Death Eaters have gone into a house and had fun torturing and killing the people inside it. Defenseless creatures left slaughtered in their path, homes destroyed, bystanders caught in the crossfire without even the slightest hint of care or compassion. I don't want to believe you're capable of that cruelty."

Wincing again, Regulus shook his head, mouth thinning a bit more.

"I want to believe you're stronger than that," Sirius mumbled, barely audible.

"I haven't done anything like that," Regulus said quietly, once he found his voice again. "Nor do I intend to."

"I believe you," Sirius shrugged. "But you're going to run into that situation where you'll have to say no, and I don't think they'll take well. If you go home, at least know someone is in your corner when Bellatrix decides to pull out her knives for playtime."

Meeting Sirius's eyes, he felt another pang. Ambiguous though it was, it almost sounded like support, possibly, though he could not say for certain if it was pointed or hypothetical. Nonetheless, in the moment, there was sense of solidarity, tentative but reassuring. Regulus was not sure if it would last - after all, he doubted Sirius's Order friends would be any more supportive than that idiot Potter, and he had already seen who had priority in that choice - but it was something, at least.

"I will be careful."

"You're always careful," Sirius said. "You need to be obstinate, decide what loyalties you want, and get the hell out before you're the cause of someone else getting their family torn to shreds."

"I already said I will," Regulus said with a frown, twisting his mouth down a little.

"I already said you'd have to say it more than once," Sirius pointed out. "Exercise some your famous patience?"

Regulus twisted his mouth a little, thinking that multiple times within the same conversation was excessive - his patience did not apply to every situation - but he nodded, all the same. "I don't particularly like repeating myself, but I will try."

"That's because you don't like stupid people," Sirius said, dismissively. "Stupid people need the same thing explained five hundred times a day and listen to maniacs who blow holes in the same wizarding communities he's supposed to be saving."

His brother's remark sounded like a pointed insult, given Regulus's previous allegiance, but his own frustration with the hypocrisies softened some of the offense. Regulus had made some stupid decisions himself, and he knew it - ones that were mirrored in other people he cared about, and with how stubborn he had once felt about it all, he knew Sirius was not wrong in that.

"Hopefully, they will see reason," Regulus said, slanting his mouth downward. "Eventually."

Sirius ran his hands over his face, then stared up towards the ceiling for a moment. "I'm literally letting you walk back into the Death Eaters. I'm a fucking idiot."

"It's temporary," Regulus said, pushing a bit of finality into his tone, despite that niggling part of his mind that agreed it _was_ immensely idiotic to go back. (Idiotic, but nonetheless an opportune chance.)

"You breathing will be temporary if you end up killing some innocent person," Sirius griped, without much heat to it. "For fuck sake, do not let me actually kill you. I do not have the time to wallow in self-loathing, there's too much to do."

"I won't," Regulus said with a huff, trying to cut off an intruding thought of what Bellatrix would have to say about any of this. (His breathing would be temporary if he didn't.) Sending his nerves reeling now wasn't going to help at all… "And that goes for both of those remarks."

Sirius shrugged. "Fine, then. That's good. Have a great rest of your life."

Regulus tightened the frown on his face. It wasn't going to be great at all, but there it was: the dismissal. Regulus had known it was coming. Sirius cared only when everything was going along the trajectory he would have personally chosen, and that knowledge ought to sting less than it did - but he had thought for a moment that Sirius might actually try to help him. Another stupid assumption.

Regulus had managed it alone the first time. He'd manage it again, if that was the way of it.

With a shrug, Regulus looked out the window again.

"It's fine, I can just -" Sirius made an ambiguous hand gesture. "I should just go. You know where I am if you want, so. See you around."

Mouth still thinned to a line, Regulus nodded, words bunched up uselessly in his throat. He was tired of talking about how he was going to brutally murder half the wizarding world, anyway. Stubbornly, he tried not to think about the unsettled feeling left behind, waiting until Sirius had walked out the door before letting out a quiet huff.

Whether or not Sirius believed in him - it was time to go home.

* * *

The entrance to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place was cast in the dim glow of gas lights lining the stretch. Though he was stepping into his own home, jittery nerves were twisting in Regulus's stomach. With steeled resolve, he reminded himself of the necessity of keeping his head down - learning as much as he could - trying not to completely rip his family apart in the meantime…

"Master Regulus!"

Kreacher's voice carried as he came up from the kitchen, and Regulus relaxed, just slightly, to see the look of unbridled relief. There was a ripple of commentary from the nearest portraits, but he paid those no mind.

"Kreacher." Seeing the house-elf safe and well released a tension he had not even noticed was still knotted up. His mother would not harm Kreacher, he did not think, but there were now those who would, were they to realise Kreacher's involvement…

Another innocent loved one Regulus had put in the crossfire.

"The Mistress has been so worried," Kreacher continued scratchily. "Old Kreacher wanted to tell of the young master's bravery, of saving Kreacher…" Torn as his expression was, Regulus believed him and felt guiltier still - but however much it might explain his disappearance, Kreacher could not say anything.

And he had not. He had kept the secret, even from Regulus's mother.

"You have done so well," Regulus said quietly as he set Canopus's cage on the floor, tucked next to the table beside him, then briefly crouched to the floor. Softening further to a whisper, he continued, "I know it is difficult, but you are protecting us all. My mother and myself, Narcissa and Bellatrix, and yourself, as well. The whole family. They cannot know what we are doing to protect them or it will no longer protect them. You understand, yes?"

Kreacher still looked halfway miserable, but he nodded.

"Then keep following my instructions, and we shall act as though nothing happened at all."

Regulus almost failed to hear the approaching footsteps, descending from the landing above, but when the sound reached him, he stood to attention with enough time to take a steadying breath.

This was his mother, not an enemy. She did not know what he had done - in the cave, or after. Nerves bred suspicion, so he smoothed his face to something much calmer than he felt.

"You're late," his mother said, voice dry.

"I apologise," he began, studying the wooden floor at her feet and reminding himself that he had done nothing explicitly treacherous. Inconsiderate, but not treacherous. "I was taking some time to myself. Though I intended to send word, I must have lost track of time."

"Do you have your owl?" His mother's tone did not waver. "It did not return either."

He nodded, mentally berating himself for not sending Canopus back home with Kreacher after sending word to Sirius. At the time, he had not been certain if Sirius would come at all, much less return the owl, but there was little to justify the silence from his mother's perspective. He suspected that she realised as much, too.

"Regulus," she said, tone taking on a sharper note. "You must tell me the truth." There was a beat of silence before she continued. "Is there a girl I must worry about?"

Regulus startled slightly, against all intentions, but his mother's face was completely serious. It was better than assuming he had gone to Sirius, but he did not much like his mother thinking he was cavorting with improper romantic entanglements, either. That was hardly better. Fighting a shade of embarrassment, he shook his head. "You needn't worry about that, no."

"No," she apparently decided. "Judging by the colour of your cheeks, I don't think so. You ought to know that it is humiliating to have your friends call here, to ask after you and to have no idea where you've gone? You could have been hurt by the filth and the rabble for all I knew. You do _not_ disappear for days on end without word. Do you understand?"

"I understand," Regulus said quietly.

"Then you should be in bed," his mother replied. "I hope you recover your manners by morning." Without a word, she turned striding back up to the landing.

Silently, Regulus nodded to himself, mouth frozen in a line. She had not shouted at him, which he supposed was better than if she had, but he still felt her cold disapproval just as keenly. Twisting slightly, he picked up Canopus - only Canopus, for he'd brought nothing else, save for the robes he'd worn - and apparated directly to his room without making eye contact with Kreacher. To get scolded was embarrassing, no matter the audience.

Regulus knew he would have to make up for his inconsiderate behaviour somehow, whether it was in the chilly mood of the house or something more pointed, but he hoped no less that it would be worth it. Like a mantra in his mind, he told himself over and over that it would be - that he could find some idea to destroy the locket, some hint about how far the Dark Lord was taking this… and that he could drum up the right words to make his family understand, when the time came. They had to understand - this war was a farce, and they had to see that.

After he had unsealed his pocket, Regulus reached a hand inside to pull out the locket, using the other to set Canopus's cage on his bedside table. He toed off his shoes then and sat on the edge of the bed, studying the emerald-crested S on the locket over again, as if it might inspire him with the means for its own destruction. Tauntingly, it gleamed, just like it always did.

The nooks and crannies of his own room would be more safe than any hiding place at Andromeda's, but it was a question of whether that hiding place was better to be stationary or in proximity to himself. Tucked away here, he could not grab it in a pinch if a situation went sideways - but keeping it with himself gave more opportunity to lose it…

Eyeing his floorboards, he paused a moment longer, then slid off the bed to peer underneath. With a swish of his wand, he loosened a half board just next to the leg of the bed and pulled it up. Inside, it was a dusty mess, but however tempting a _Scourgify_ might be, there was some benefit to it looking untouched for ages.

In his hand, he felt the heaviness of the locket as readily as the heaviness of his task. After dropping it into the pocketed space, he paused just a moment longer - then without further deliberation, cast a charm to conceal the look of it, just as he had on the locket left in the cave. The metal was a rusted silver now, with a jammed locket hinge of its own. Most likely, no one would be pulling up his floorboards, but if they did, it looked like something any one of his ancestors could have stashed generations ago. Accessing it would not be so freely an option, but it would give him time to think… For the moment, he needed that most.

After securing the floorboard again, Regulus rose up, and this time, he pulled out a vial of the puss he had collected in the forest - better contained than he had feared, but perhaps it should not have surprised him that Andromeda would have such expertly reinforced glass.

These vials, he stuck in his desk drawer. Truthfully, Regulus did not think anyone in the family would disapprove of dangerous poisons, yet controlling the use of his own ingredients - as well as the family stores - would make everything far easier to use with fewer questions. Regulus was no master potioneer, but he had always done well with the advanced recipes of his final year - some, at least, ought to be doable, especially when no ingestion was required… How simple it would be if he could just ask Severus to brew him a variety of terrible things with no questions asked, but it was much easier to avoid questions when no one knew to be asking them.

With a huffing sigh, he collapsed on his bed, steeling himself for more uncomfortable conversations the next day. Barty, at least, was a priority apology, though damage control was a wider spread concern. With luck, it would be little more than a passing spike of drama, smothered by the more important tragedies of the war, or the more scandalous infractions of the upcoming holiday in Porth Iago. Surely, there would be something more interesting than wandering off alone for a few days…

The worst of his interactions were private - and he would make every effort to keep it that way, for as long as he could.


	5. The Ravenclaw Rebellion

**Chapter 5: The Ravenclaw Rebellion**

* * *

The house was quiet when Regulus awoke, encased in a familiar stillness—a silence that he could feel, as much as hear (-or rather, not hear). When he sat up, he saw his wardrobe to the right, his mostly bare desk tucked adjacent to the window, the hint of his untouched trunk still pulled up against the foot of his bed. At home, once again, Regulus was now surrounded with the familiarity of his own bookshelves lining the walls, filled with texts he had thumbed through too many times to track… as well as two texts he had indefinitely borrowed from his cousin Bellatrix, one of which had at last whispered of the horcruxes, though he had disguised the book before leaving for the cave. Whether or not she knew he had taken it, he could not be sure, but there was nothing so terrible about digging into dark magic, as far as she was concerned. Bellatrix always seemed positively delighted when he showed even an inkling of interest, though his stomach dropped immediately at the thought.

After dressing for the day, Regulus stepped out into the hallway, passing sleepy portrait after sleepy portrait as he wound his way down to the floors below. His heart twinged as he passed by his father's study; the closed door was a familiar sight, but it still felt like a kick to the gut, knowing that there wasn't anyone on the other side of it. Regulus had not dared to open the door since his father had passed, though he had come home for the funeral, and again for the spring holidays.

The study had always been hallowed ground—and if its door remained shut, he did not have to think so hard or too long about the fact that his father was no longer in it.

He reached the ground floor with no sign of his mother anywhere, no sound aside from the low mix of soft snoring and quiet chitters come from the long line of family portraits decorating the stretching hallway. Down one more set of stairs, he came to the kitchen, which also appeared to be empty, save for Kreacher coming out of his cupboard.

For a jarring and suffocating moment, he wished that he could just crawl into a cupboard, pull a blanket over himself and disappear, but however small the scale, he suspected he had used his reserve of permitted disappearances for some time.

"Kreacher is relieved to have Master Regulus home. My mistress was so worried, feared the worst, that the young master had been killed, or that he had gone the way of that nasty, ungrateful traitor," Kreacher was saying as he started conjuring breakfast.

Regulus did not think either his mother or his house-elf would much like the company he had kept for the past few days, but the lack of detailed questioning was a small mercy, at least for now.

After breakfast, he wandered upstairs once again to find Canopus and write back to Barty—something he should have done the day before but stopped short of it, worrying that his friend might herald his return before his mother heard back from him. Given her displeasure about having no more information than his friends did, Regulus suspected that he had made the right choice.

Anxiety had been knotting in Regulus's stomach, leading up to his mid-morning outing with Barty, but when the time at last came, seeing his face was enough to calm that twisting feeling—at least until he opened his mouth.

"Why didn't you tell anyone where you were going?" Barty asked, walking so close that their elbows lightly bumped on occasion. The summer morning was warm, even under the shade of the buildings lining Diagon Alley, but it would get hotter as the sun kept rising. There was a modest throng of people, though the afternoon lunch crowd had not yet flooded the cobblestone path.

"I do not have a good answer for that," he replied, which was not untrue. "I simply needed to be alone for a moment."

"For several moments, and then some," Barty corrected. "I wondered if you had been set to anything in particular, but your cousin didn't mention anything."

More than likely, Barty was referring to Bella, and in that moment, Regulus's stomach roiled hot and sick at the thought of their next training session with her. Barty took to the sessions better; he had, right from the start, and though part of Regulus was wounded that his cousin seemed to like his best friend better, he was, in the same flickering thought, always glad when it helped to mask any deficits in enthusiasm on his part.

After a silent beat, Regulus felt Barty's eyes on him, followed by a gentle bump of the shoulder. "Was it about your father?"

Another silence stretched across the moment, and Regulus felt his jaw clamp. It was and it wasn't, but Barty seemed to take the tense quiet as confirmation and let the line of questioning drop.

"The party was boring," Barty went on to say. The graduation party, no doubt, which Regulus had skipped for more reasons than one. "Sera Travers asked about you probably ten times. I told her you were ill, so I would appreciate you supporting that story."

That story was not far from the truth, from a certain point of view. "Of course. I think I might still be ill, actually."

"I thought you were looking a bit peaky."

"There is no need to be insulting about it."

"You are not selling this story well at all," Barty said with a playful quirk at the corner of his mouth. "Try again."

"I am exceptionally peaky," Regulus said, dryly.

"That's the spirit." Barty reached up to squeeze the crook of Regulus's neck, hooking for a few passing seconds before letting his arm drop again.

Perhaps Regulus was simply imagining things—guilt-induced paranoia—but there seemed to be something like a searching look in Barty's eyes when he glanced over, as if his friend was reading his face like a book. Holding a neutral expression and fighting off the temptation to let his thoughts spiral, Regulus paused and tipped his head towards Flourish and Blotts.

"Do you mind if we stop?"

"Never," Barty replied, not missing a beat as they stepped through the door and into the towering forest of books.

Regulus's mind flicked briefly to Gideon Prewett as they came to the runes section, stopping just short of magical artifacts. The invitation to their puzzle-solving group sounded harmless enough, if not anything he necessarily felt appropriate to bring up. The Prewetts were neutral, but he wasn't naive enough to think that neutral could not shift either way. However confident Regulus might feel when vouching for his uncle and aunt, anything beyond them was unknown. A curiosity, for certain, but unknown, nonetheless.

"Runes, is it?" Barty asked, following his line of sight.

"Runes, it is," Regulus replied, plucking one off the shelf.

"Anything in particular?" Barty's eyes skimmed across the titles before he pulled a book to start thumbing through, himself.

"Not in particular, no," Regulus admitted, flipping through. He was not so advanced that he would feel confident deciphering any particularly complicated texts, but he wondered vaguely if there were any runic mentions of horcruxes, or similarly destruction-resistant magic. At the very least, a browse wouldn't hurt before the upcoming puzzle night, set for the coming weekend. "I merely want to see if there is anything interesting beyond what we already have at the house. The end of formal education does not mean the end of learning, after all."

"If you find anything, let me know," Barty said, though he took a peek at Regulus's open book before cracking his open.

"Of course," Regulus said, watching Barty for just a beat too long before burying his nose in his own book.

* * *

The barman, Tom, flagged Gideon's attention the moment he lugged his bag in the door to the Leaky Cauldron. "Two of your lot have already shown up," he said. "I sent them on up."

"Cheers," Gideon replied. For all his own talk of punctuality, he was later than he'd like. Work had overrun, then he'd just had the idea for this week stuck in his head, and he'd lost track of time. It was still quarter of an hour until people were due to show up. It would probably be enough time, especially if he had help. He wasn't sure who'd be early, mind. Usually it'd be Remus or Caradoc, but neither were coming tonight.

The music playing from the WWN was soon being drowned out by an unfamiliar song that went from sounding normal to sounding as if it was coming from under a pond, so he wasn't altogether surprised to find his (previous) newest invitee and one of his best mates looking at what looked like a muggle wireless. "You're early tonight," Gideon said, and they both looked at him in unison with a vague jump. He must've been being stealthy.

"Quiet night," Benjy said, with a shrug.

"I didn't want to come slinking in like last time," Sturgis said.

"The power of a Gideon Prewett scowl," Benjy laughed, going back to opening a pocket in the wireless and pulling out a rectangle with two holes in the middle. He blew along one side, and put it back in.

"There's no way that'll work," Sturgis said.

Benjy pressed a button, and the music resumed, this time without any of the distortion. He beamed at Sturgis and raised both his arms in victory, who immediately looked back at the device.

Sturgis had been a new addition about four months before. He'd come recommended by Caradoc, whose brother-in-law knew him through his father. A wizarding perspective beyond the muggleborn on muggle objects was always welcome: it helped explain things that they often needed to know, presented in a way that was actually understood by half the Order. Sturgis wasn't an Order member himself, but his input had been valuable enough that Gideon had raised the idea with Dumbledore last time he saw him.

However, if the headmaster had spoken to Sturgis about it, he wasn't giving any indication of it.

"Do you want to give me a hand?" Gideon asked. He'd set up a cursebreaker-style riddle tonight—get across the board by solving the right runes, eight of which were safe to step on.

Benjy immediately gave him a round of applause, and Gideon was once again reminded why he hated his brother's best friend. He still got up to help him set up the board, so he supposed he wasn't so _terrible_.

"He was just showing me the music caysets," Sturgis said, by way of explanation. "Though how you got it t'work by blowing over it, I'm..."

"Dumbfounded?" Benjy offered. "Flabbergasted?"

"Stop your walking thesaurus act and help me arrange the stones on the table in this pattern," Gideon said.

"Who's all coming tonight?" Benjy asked, peering over his shoulder to see the formation.

"Dorcas and Dedalus, Fabian will probably be late because he'll wait for you thinking you're late-" Gideon began.

"I've owled him," Benjy said. "I'm only late when it's life and death. I'm a Healer. People's lives are in my hands."

Gideon ignored him and continued to answer. "Emme's the only one of the kids, but I invited someone else to sit in. Can you see this stone from over there?"

"Aye, I can," Sturgis said. Good, then everyone at the table would get a good view.

"Who's the sub?" Benjy asked.

"Regulus Black," Gideon said. He knew there'd be a reaction to it. Benjy was muggleborn, and he'd raised his eyebrows to new heights when he'd met heard Sirius's name as well.

"Who's that to Sirius?" Benjy asked.

Of course, now if it came up, he'd have to try and think of a reason for why a Healer five years his senior knew Sirius at all if Regulus asked. Or if Sturgis asked, for that matter, but he had a feeling 'we're part of the same vigilante organisation' would go down far worse with the former.

"His brother," Gideon answered. "He's bright, he's courteous, and if there's any potential recruiters sniffing about, it wouldn't hurt to get wind of it."

"Aren't all of Sirius's family nuts?" Benjy asked. "Purist _and_ nuts."

"Probably purist," Gideon allowed. Some of it had to be taken with a grain of salt as Sirius was fond of hyperbole, but some of it was exactly as described from his limited observations. It was more than likely about the purism, but he had heard of no bad blood between him and any of the '78ers, save for a complicated family situation. It's possible he'd simply never had much experience in the area. "But his aunt is married to my uncle, and she's withdrawn but not unpleasant. He may never have had a conversation with a muggleborn before."

"I'm the guinea pig? I'm warning you, Gid, I'll hex him if I hear the M word," Benjy warned.

"Me too," Gideon said, but it was an uncouth term for the showy and blustery and bigoted. He wanted to see how the lad functioned without society breathing down his neck. "But I think Dorcas will beat both of us to it, and she's much scarier. Let's get on with it."

* * *

With the fall of evening, Gideon Prewett's 'puzzle night' had finally drawn to a head, but it was not until Regulus was preparing to leave that he found himself uncertain as to whether it was best to show up early—an establishment of his own promptness—or arrive solidly on the mark to avoid that awkward lull prior to the start of an event. He barely knew Gideon and expected he would not know anyone else in attendance, and the more he let himself dwell on it, the more convinced he became that it was best to arrive at the exact time indicated.

When it came time to leave, Regulus half-worried that his mother would forbid him to go as some punishment for his disappearance, but there was no shout, nor any prying questions. Instead, she landed a biting comment: " _Should you decide to once again disappear for days, send me an owl, this time."_ She did not look at him to say it—did not look up at all from what she had been doing—but her words connected like a kick to the gut. The sudden recoil he felt made him want to shrink into himself and go back upstairs, but instead, he made his awkward way out the door-

-and arrived precisely when he had intended to.

Regulus still felt the weight of his mother's displeasure when he stepped into the Leaky Cauldron, trying not to look as sullen as he felt. He did not notice them on the ground floor, so he wandered up the stairs, catching sight of a small group surrounding a table. He recognised Gideon right away with his red hair—Gideon's brother was there too, but distinguishable without much trouble—but not a single face otherwise looked familiar. One of the girls, a brunette, looked familiar from school, but the others looked to be closer to Gideon's age—or in some cases, probably older.

Gideon had not looked over at him yet, and for a panicky moment, Regulus thought that he could still leave without much trace and little consequence beyond the mild offense, or perhaps mild disappointment, or perhaps mild relief of a person he did not naturally cross paths with on any sort of regular basis.

After only a few horrible seconds (that felt significantly longer), Regulus strode over to the table, catching Gideon's eye as a way of acknowledgement.

"Right on time," Gideon told him. He reached into the folds of his overcoat, pulling out a watch as if to double check. "That's just Dorcas running late then. Are you a group introductions person, or do you just want to do it in your own time?"

The question seemed strange, though perhaps it shouldn't have. In his experience, everything always seemed to be structured by whoever was facilitating one event or another. For a hesitant beat, he wasn't certain which he preferred, but the latter implied the necessity of individual conversations with each person to complete the process. More than likely, he could gather their names through the event—already, he knew that whoever walked in late was called 'Dorcas'—but perhaps it would be easiest to just move past it all at once…

"Group introductions are fine," Regulus decided aloud, though he was already finding a seat near Gideon to break out of the blatant focus of attention.

Gideon pointed to his side, to what was obviously his brother. "You might remember my brother Fabian; don't lend him so much as a quill and expect to get it back in one piece." Then while Fabian rolled his eyes, to the man next to him with short dark hair and his arm over the chair back. "That's Benjy Fenwick; don't feel obligated to laugh at his jokes, we all know they're terrible." He moved then to someone who looked decently older than both of the others, wearing an ascot and flat cap. "Dedalus Diggle, always dapper and surprisingly early today." ("Thank you!" the man replied, with some enthusiasm.) "Sturgis Podmore, resident transportation expert and reason for our music tonight." The man in questioned looked a little embarrassed, but half waved. "And someone you might know already, Emmeline Vance. All details about her are classified. There's a few others that come and go. Dorcas should be here later; that's Dorcas Meadowes, She works in the Wizengamot, which is probably why she's late."

From his chair, Regulus eyed each of them in turn, slotting names and faces into his memory. When Gideon's explanation came to a close, Regulus tipped his head with a little nod of acknowledgement.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all," he said politely, holding back the temptation to look too long at what had seemed to be a wireless, if possessing of a few components that seemed extraneous. The music was unfamiliar, but he thought he probably oughtn't ask, at the moment. Instead, he glanced at Gideon to make sure he wasn't gearing up to speak again, then made an effort to filter the off-footedness from his tone to add: "I'm Regulus Black."

There was a brief chorus of hello's, before Gideon pointed to the stones in the middle of the table. "We're going to do some team ups tonight, winners can nominate someone to take the next round. Benjy and Fabian will collude anyway if I don't put them on the same team. Sturgis and Emmeline, you two alright?"

"Quite all right," Emmeline said, already standing to go over and sit with him.

"Dedalus, that'll put you with Dorcas when she gets here, and since it's his first go round, Regulus, you're happy with me?" Gideon swivelled to look at him, and Regulus nodded. "I've set the pattern to randomise, so I still have part of the puzzle I can solve. You have 15 minutes to look over the riddle without any context and pick some team names to write on your parchment."

With introductions past, Regulus relaxed slightly and turned his attention to the stones. They were arranged in a grid - eight stones by eight stones - each with a different rune inscribed on the surface. He let a few moments of study pass before asking: "Is it based on patterns or paths?"

"You need to find the runic route of the symbols to find the way across," Gideon replied, keeping his voice low.

"Favouritism!" Dedalus declared.

"He asked, you didn't," Gideon replied, cooly. "Now you'll never know if I'd have told you."

Though Regulus had not realised it was protected information, he was no less pleased as he leaned forward to further study the set. Runes were a point of interest; he had not received his NEWT results yet, but even with the plaguing horcrux mystery he had been picking apart for months, he thought he probably still did rather well on it. Some of the runes were more obscure, but some meanings could be derived if they were related enough…

"Why did it have to be runes?" Emmeline groaned aloud. "Not exactly my best subject."

"I was at the mercy of Uncle Ignatius's collection, and we had care of magic creatures last time. I'd have suggested astronomy, but we'd be done before snacks," Gideon explained. "Doc—that's who was nominated last time for correctly guessing it—didn't leave any specific instructions. There's some texts on the table I'll allow, but you won't find them in there. Use your brains! Find the patterns, or it rolls over, and I'm going to use obscure magical history to punish you all."

Regulus nodded, still eyeing the stones. He doubted that any obscure magical history Gideon drummed up could be more punishing than Binns. In his opinion, it was not the history that was the problem—rather the mode of delivery—but the 'threat' had been more light than anything, so he kept the thought to himself.

Flicking his eyes over to the books, then, Regulus found that he recognised some of them, but it was not terribly surprising, given the source that Gideon had tapped when putting the puzzle together. They were theoretical and conceptual more than descriptive of individual runes, but that was clearly the idea behind it. The chosen texts certainly supported his suspicions in respect to the unfamiliar runes being derivations or variants on a significant concept… Perhaps less familiar scripts.

"Everyone get a good look?" Gideon asked, glancing around at the people nodding or tipping heads in the affirmative. "Then here is your puzzle: there is safe navigation in a single direction across the stones. The other stones are traps. Hit a trap on your pathway, and you lose."

Regulus nodded, tugging the parchment over and picking up the nearest quill to make an eight-by-eight grid in the top-left corner and a second in the top-right. Flicking his gaze between the stones and the parchment, he first copied the runes neatly into their designated spaces; in the second grid, he noted some of the easily recognizable runes, the first of which was the Nordic rune for 'journey,' shaped like an R. Thematically appropriate for traveling across a board, he had to admit. It would take a few translations to guess at whether it was a pattern, but dutifully, he copied a few more of the more standard translations.

"Sickle for your thoughts?" Gideon asked him in a whisper.

"I'm determining which runes I already know, which ones are familiar but less automatic, and which ones are unfamiliar or derivative," Regulus responded quietly as he wrote 'sun' on the right grid, corresponding with something that looked like a lightning bolt. A Viking rune, as Regulus recalled. 'Sun' was probably not part of the safe path, though he supposed it could be, if the theme included light. Daytime travel was often considered to be safer, though it was more exposed than travel by night, too… "OWL level focused primarily on Celtic runes, but NEWT level covered other European influences, particularly in respect to Nordic runes—which I can see will be relevant for some of these."

"It's potentially numeric. Five point sides are protective," Emmeline commented, with her parchment filling up with numbers to each side.

"Runes, not arithmancy," Dedalus told her.

"Magic is not a simple categorisation process. Potions and herbology, for example." Emmeline pointed her wand at him. "You try your methods, we'll try mine."

"Those all look like Molly's kids drew them," Fabian pointed out. "You didn't charm them to actually explode, did you?"

"That might make runes more interesting," Benjy replied darkly.

"Regulus has a point, just use the process of elimination between runes that mean something good—like triumph, over there," Fabian said, looking at the stones. "Then put in the outright bad, then use one for what's fuzzy. That's augury, that's bad."

"What about chimaeras?" Benjy said. "I've seen that one before."

"Chimaeras are brilliant," Fabian declared.

"They're deadly," Benjy reminded him.

"So are you behind the wheel of a car," Sturgis said. "I wouldn't put you in the bad pile."

"That's a first, I'm usually the first one in it," Benjy replied. "What about water? Or is it ocean? Water you could drink, but ocean might kill you."

Regulus glanced around the table. Gideon had implied a 'winner' of sorts, but it did not seem like a particularly competitive environment when everyone was sharing their plans and methodologies as freely as one might in a collaborative task. Whether it was misplaced interpretation on his part or misplaced motivation on their part was hard to say, but if banter was commonplace, he could not say that was unpleasant, either.

Unclear, but not unpleasant.

Fleetingly, he also noted the mention of a muggle 'car' in respect to 'Benjy,' but that did not seem like a safe topic of conversation, so he pretended not to notice as he scribbled down another runic translation. The one Benjy had noted was, in fact, 'ocean' and would probably kill you. He smothered a shudder at the thought, trying not to think about wet, clammy hands when he was trying to concentrate on a puzzle.

The silence was shattered by a new arrival, who hurriedly came in and shut the door. Likely the 'Dorcas' who had been missing, she was a well-dressed older black woman clutching onto a bag.

"You're very late," Gideon said, in way of greeting.

"You may thank Crouch for it," Dorcas replied, glancing around the room. "We're very small tonight."

"Doc and Alice are working," Dedalus told her. "I did hear Mr. Crouch was pushing for longer hours."

"Because working the Ministry into exhaustion will certainly save lives." Dorcas sighed, before she appeared to notice Regulus himself. "I see we have someone new."

"Regulus Black," he supplied, watching her face for a beat.

"I thought so." Dorcas replied, with a fleeting smile. "Dorcas Meadowes."

"I thought you'd be pleased not to be token Slytherin," Gideon said, meeting her eyes.

"A little more competitive spirit wouldn't go amiss," Dorcas said, still looking at Regulus rather than at Gideon himself. "The family house trend continued on after I left, then?"

It was strange to find a fellow serpent outside the context of his regular social peers, but perhaps it should not have been. There were many Slytherins in the years surrounding his own that he never interacted with, and it must have been the same in years prior. Unexpected, but again, not negatively so.

"I was sorted into Slytherin, yes," he replied.

"I can't believe you still like your house," Fabian made a scrunched up face at her. "Didn't you get hell?"

"Sometimes," Dorcas said, with a light shrug. "But I liked Slughorn. He was very warm and welcoming. Can we not all devolve into house stereotypes? I only asked because I remembered the legacy being a point of pride of one of the students when I was a prefect. It's always funny to run into the children, or grandchildren of people you once had to give detention to."

"I look forward to it," Emmeline said, rubbing her hands together with a laugh.

"We have a nephew starting in two years," Gideon said. "I dread to think what he'll hear about the things we did."

"I have one starting in four," Sturgis said, looking to Emmeline. "Has it changed much, with everything?"

"Not as much as you'd think," Emmeline replied. "Hogwarts weathers all things, by man, woman or nature. I miss the school, though I don't miss NEWTs. When do you hear about yours?"

"Later this summer," Regulus responded, remembering then that Emmeline Vance had been a Ravenclaw prefect in the year above him, though he had not paid much attention to those that he did not share rounds with. Furthermore, he slotted Dorcas Meadowes into the 'previous prefect' category and the Prewetts into 'probably got detentions from prefects' category, respectively. "Around August, I imagine, though they have not announced a more specific window at this point."

"We got very lucky, I had mine the first week of August," Emmeline said. "I almost vibrated to another dimension the entirety of July last year."

"Did you get hired without your results?" Dedalus asked.

"I had predicted results, and they were all fine," Emmeline replied. "I think it's like Healers; you're accepted on prediction results but can be removed if you do badly."

"Is this the time to mention all of mine were Outstanding?" Dorcas said, looking over the stones.

"Not unless you want me to cry," Emmeline said.

"I'll see if you're doing better than me on this first," Dorcas replied. "It never hurts to have a distraction and buy yourself a little time to catch up when detained for reasons of tyranny. Who am I with?"

"Me!" Dedalus said, pushing one of the seats out. "I saved you your parchment."

"Thank you," Dorcas said, taking her seat.

Turning his attention back to the stones, Regulus fell quiet again. In truth, he had not thought about his NEWT exams since he was riding home on the Hogwarts Express less a week ago—more a distraction from the imposing task ahead of him than anything else. In the end, his marks were more for a personal point of pride, and perhaps some measure of approval from his family, though of course, they expected he would do well, so there was no true suspense in it. For 'career counseling,' he had not been chasing down jobs so much as looking for something to alleviate long-term boredom, but he had not even been graduated a week, and thinking about the horcruxes had already started to feel like a full-time job... It was just that he now, at least, did not have school and Quidditch on top of it.

(Death Eater responsibilities would be coming again, he supposed, but he was trying not to think about those.)

Spotting another travel-related rune at the top-right—Celtic, this time, a vertical line with four lines slashing through it—he went back to the puzzle at hand.

By about midnight, everyone had decided on a path through runes. They played out each path, with no one seeming surprised that Dorcas and Gideon's 'team's had both won. Emmeline made some noise about it being entirely too inside the box for her, with Benjy threatening to hire Dedalus just to bring up a legal contract to make sure no one used a lack of knowledge about ancient lines and swirls against them.

"Thank you! I appreciate your faith in me, but you couldn't afford my fees on a Healer salary," Dedalus said. He reached for his glass, draining it and standing up.

"Damn it, he's right," Benjy admitted. "It's my lot in life to be underpaid, overworked, and ignorant in runes."

Gideon leaned in to Regulus for a moment. "What do you think? I swear none of them bite any more than you've seen tonight."

Regulus had gathered through stray comments that it was mixed company past the point that his mother would ever conceivably approve, but they did not seem the sorts to tattle, either. It had been a fun night, a break from the normal routine of things, and however uncomfortable certain moments had felt, his mood had improved substantially from the point he had left the house earlier that night.

Tipping his head toward Gideon, he nodded. "I would count that as a positive experience."

"Are you always quiet, or just a lot of people you don't know well in one go?" Gideon asked, quietly. "Because I'm happy to extend an invitation, if you think you can handle one of Dorcas's obscure ones; but if you're uncomfortable, it's obligation, not fun, and I don't want that. You contributed, you had interesting ideas, and you don't seem to want to kill anyone, so by my standards, it went all right."

Not wanting to kill anyone—ridiculous though it was, he was cheered, slightly, to hear that as a positive point. It always seemed to sour Bella's mood when his enthusiasm was substandard, but at least she had never asked him to murder anyone at a puzzle night before… or anyone at all, though he supposed that would only last so long, now that he was out of school.

Shaking his head slightly, Regulus shoved the thoughts away again. "I would be interested in trying another," he settled to say. It would be untruthful to say that it was not uncomfortable, but he could feel his curiosity trumping the comfort, already.

For a moment, Gideon looked sheepish. "We're a weird bunch of people. It's like one of those 'wizards walking into a bar' jokes: a healer, two lawyers, an unspeakable, a mechanic, and a couple of mad inventors walk into the Leaky Cauldron to solve puzzles till midnight. In the interests of disclosure, one of our other regulars isn't here tonight and thinks you might have a problem with him. I don't see why, personally. We don't expect him on full moons, and out of them, he's an exceptionally pleasant person. Still, I thought it was a good idea to know Lupin might be at the next one and give you an out if you want it."

Regulus pressed his lips to a line. Lupin was inching closer in the direction of people he _knew_ he oughtn't mingle with and inching further away from plausible deniability, but of his brother's idiot friends, he had to admit Lupin seemed to be the most tolerable. The full moon comment had been slightly surprising and might have sounded strange, had Snape not mentioned Lupin's lycanthropy situation a while back, but Lupin's condition did not seem to be common knowledge, as far as Regulus had ever been aware. Perhaps if Lupin was a regular at these gatherings, they were closer friends than Regulus would have assumed. A strange mix of people, considering Lupin was a Gryffindor who hung out with his brother… but Emmeline Vance was in his brother's year too, so perhaps Lupin had met them through her. She had been a Ravenclaw, and there were certainly a few other Ravenclaws present.

"It is complicated," Regulus settled. "I would expect he does not particularly care for me either. With that being said, I can be civil. Lupin, as an individual, is not usually the problem."

"The rest of the horde aren't invited," Gideon replied. "This requires stopping and thinking before putting mouths into motion, which Remus is capable of, but by and large, his company is not. Lily is an irregular; she comes and goes, but you were in Slug Club with her, so I thought Remus might be a bigger problem. I've already spoken to him briefly, but he said he has no issue with it, and I imagine that's true. Quiet means quiet, not unpleasant."

Lily Evans was _definitely_ movement in the wrong direction, but Gideon was not completely wrong about the Slug Club. Regulus had never riled himself to antagonism against her, but he had made it through his years at school by pretending that Evans did not exist (and that his head of house was not enamoured with her—and that Snape was not enamoured with her—and that she was not in his Slug Club and prefect spaces alike—it had been a challenging effort). The thought made him feel very uncomfortable, but at least Gideon had said 'irregular,' and Lupin was the current issue at hand. He supposed if Lupin was not going to make a problem of it, there were certainly worse people. Regulus could worry about the Evans situation later

"Then I do not have a problem with it, either," Regulus decided, hoping that edge of uncertainty did not turn into regret. "When should I expect further details?"

"Should be the 21st, but I can owl if something changes." Gideon replied. "Dorcas should have her location details in no more than a week, so I'll do it then just in case. Congratulations on your win."

"Thank you," he said, though it took only a beat longer to realise that the 21st would put the next puzzle night on the same weekend as his birthday—the day before, more precisely. Assuming that this summer was like every other, his family, along with the majority of their societal peers, would already be settled on the Welsh coast for their summer holiday. Of course, he had been there just last week, but that was not a train of thought he wanted to follow at all. Instead, he steeled his mind and added, "I cannot say for certain what my availability will be that weekend, but I will keep it in mind."

"You guys still head up the coast?" Gideon asked. "We haven't been in a few years. Perils of

gainful employment is the inability to take a month off."

As far as Regulus was aware, there were those who merely apparated from Wales to their places of employment each day, but he supposed that was not the point. Instead, he nodded. "We do, assuming I have not missed a major shift in holiday destinations."

"Wouldn't someone have told you if they had?" Gideon asked. "Perks of adulthood."

Within his mind, Regulus could imagine his mother saying that if he wanted to be privy to decision-changes, he oughtn't disappear for days at a time. Hypothetical, of course, and he doubted they would change a tradition like that at all, but it still stung.

Steeling against the feeling, Regulus nodded. "Of course."

"Just send word if it's too much trouble." Gideon made a vague gesture around. "Not everyone comes all the time, and you're welcome to the one after that."

"I will keep that in mind," Regulus said as an unsettled feeling started to prickle. His mother had not specified her expectations for him to return at any particular time, but he was not normally out so late, and he knew he was on thinner ice than usual. That, in itself, made him feel tired. "Thank you for the invitation, but I should be going."

"Safe journey," Gideon replied.

Pressing his lips together, Regulus nodded and turned to leave, disappearing out the door without further ceremony.

* * *

The Hog's Head was a grotty little tavern run by a mysterious hermit without a buxom barmaid in sight. There were enough shady dealings on both sides that both tended to turn a blind eye to people meeting, but Aberforth – —despite his generally irritable demeanor towards most of the Order business—tended to let a lot of the Order lot use his back rooms as a kind of information point. Dumbledore (Albus, not his brother) was a busy bloke, but the Order itself needed to collect information somewhere safe where they didn't look too out of place. Sirius reckoned he rarely looked out of place anywhere if he didn't want to, but there were respectable people in the Order who needed to be out of sight when they came in. Even James could be considered on the borderline of being respectable, though he wailed over that these days. Still, he was preoccupied with his wife or his taxes or whatever it was that married people did after a couple of months of making disgusting faces at each other, so Sirius came with Remus.

He ordered for them both, taking the glasses through the backroom. It wasn't a surprise to find a smattering of the others there. There wouldn't likely be any Aurors tonight, not exactly the kind of place they could frequent without it being noticed, but Sirius was surprised to see Dorcas Meadowes had made an appearance. She'd had her face in a few papers as a member of the Wizengamot, so he thought she'd draw unwanted attention, but he admired her for not letting it limit her at all. She was talking to a Prewett, though from here, he couldn't see which one.

"You doing the honours tonight?" Sirius asked her, walking up.

"This is how I choose to spend my days off," Meadowes replied, with a long suffering and embellished sigh. "Alice drew up the observation list. You're still happy to take overnight in Hogsmeade?"

Sirius nodded. Almost everyone else had jobs to go to the next day, but he and Dung, shyster that he was, took the overnights. He was at his best after sundown as it was. "Seems like a quiet week," he said.

"Mmm," Meadowes replied. "It won't last, and Crouch is keen to capitalise on the lull. There are some mask drafts with Dedalus; make sure you take a look."

"We will," Remus said, for them both.

"You think something like the bloody mess in Godric's Hollow is in the works?" The Ministry had been wading through burnt out homes and matching up body parts to owners for days after that.

"We need better ways of gathering intelligence," Dorcas said. "Are you still inclined to do a little fact-finding?"

"Sure," Sirius said. There'd been a lot of talk about how to do that, from infiltrating society parties where all ears are assumed to be sympathetic, to attempting to get into the Lestrange Library.

"I'll keep you apprised," Meadowes nodded, looking down at her glass briefly. "The Dark creature rumours continue to rumble, according to Marlene. Hagrid is making inquiries, so doubtless we'll hear from him soon.

"There's people with their ear to the ground too," Gideon said. "Benjy gets them more than most—a muggleborn and a Healer, they're more likely to talk to him. He's been helping Moody and Dedalus with their mask profiles, but there's been some unsettling feedback."

Meadowes grimaced. "It seems there is now a fear of calling upon the Aurors for their intended purpose—in case one of the Aurors has more sympathies to pureblood mania than justice."

That wasn't surprising. A few choice people excluded, law enforcement was a joke at best and dangerous at worst. "They reckon some of the attacks are inside jobs?"

"We're looking into it," Meadowes said, firmly. Her eyes flickered to Remus. "You were missed yesterday."

"It was probably more exciting than watching Tinworth," Remus replied.

Oh, that's right, the Ravenclaw Rebellion had their little meeting, didn't they? Sirius would be lying if he hadn't wondered about it. He hoped his voice didn't betray the fact he was dying to know. "How'd it go?"

"Amicably, " Meadowes replied. "You want to know what happened with your younger brother."

Sirius hesitated, "Dunno if he'd call himself that," he said, carefully. "But yes."

"Intelligent, but withdrawn. Clearly used to intense structure instead of freeform. Very understated, which I never thought I'd ever say of a Black," Meadowes responded. "He's not an easy person to get a read out of."

"Lucretia's like that. Bit like a swan," Gideon decided. "Nothing determinable from the top, lots going on underneath."

"Fair assessment," Meadowes nodded. "If we were going by temperament alone, I'd ask to swap you if only because he seems able to sit still."

"There's a reason he's the little king and I'm the bane of my mother's existence," Sirius said. It was said as a joke, he knew, but some part of him bristled uncomfortably. That could be what Remus's eyebrows were doing. "You wouldn't want to keep him. He uses the M word."

"He hasn't in front of me," Gideon shrugged. "Do you think he's likely to?"

Sirius was about to point out he was a staunch purist, though he had always had this sneaking suspicion it was more an obsession with being appropriate than true belief. He could parrot it back, word for word, but whether he believed it was anyone's guess. Truthfully, as a family—if he could call the epic joke that masqueraded as one a family—they didn't acknowledge muggleborns by any name. If you had muggle parents, you were muggle. If not, you were a witch or wizard, though obviously with less prestige if you couldn't tell them a thousand years of your ancestry. Muggle wasn't much better, though he guessed it was more erasing than insulting.

"Fenwick there last night?" Sirius asked, instead. Gideon nodded. "Then he's spent more time around muggleborns in the last week than he has his entire life. I have no idea what he's thinking."

"Other than he's considering attending the next one?" Gideon suggested. "I warned him yours got competitive."

"We'll find out if he shows up," Meadowes said.

Remus seemed to hesitate. "Did you tell him of my involvement?"

"I did," Gideon confirmed. "He claimed it to be complex, but not so much that he didn't want to go. He still has two weeks to change his mind."

Something rattled around in Sirius's brain, that there was something in two weeks, something important. "He's going to come down from Iago?" he asked, trying to think of what it was.

"Depends where Dorcas decides to set it," Gideon gave her a look that Sirius couldn't interpret, and she simply raised her glass to him.

"That's the 21st?" Remus asked. "I can take a watch if it's going to cause any discomfort."

"Discomfort is important in judging character," Meadowes replied. "You should come."

"The 22nd," Sirius said aloud, suddenly. It all began to slot into his mind why that was important. It would be Regulus's eighteenth birthday, a thought that brought on enough sadness, bitterness, and anger that he could have fueled an entire rant on the idiocy of purists for hours on it.

"21st," Meadowes replied, saying it slowly this time.

"I heard you," Sirius said. "I don't think it's Iago that's the clash, that's all."

"Oh?" Gideon asked.

"His birthday's the 22nd," Sirius said, shortly.

"That's much more understandable," Gideon nodded. "He could have just said that."

"It would have inconvenienced you to think about what he wanted," Sirius said, with a little heat dripping in. "You could probably walk up to him, break his nose, and he'd apologise for hurting your hand."

"You're sure it's not a problem?" Remus looked from him to Gideon. Damn it, he really did more than suspect something Death Eater related was going on. Was it possible Regulus could be a spy? Surely, Meadowes was considering it. Maybe it's why she was interested in it, she could use a spy. Except he surely couldn't be. Regulus was the world's worst liar. You just had to look at his sleeves.

"No, you don't seem to be," Gideon offered. "If anything-"

"POTTER! Put that wand back on you! You never know when you're going to be attacked!"

Moody's voice boomed across the room, where James and Lily must've slipped in. James made a flourish with his hand, and shoved it in his front pocket.

"We should go save him from Moody," Sirius said, without looking at Remus. Not wanting to mention it to James felt unnatural, but he also knew his best mate would go ballistic, so he'd scoot over there immediately. He took several strides to over by the door where McKinnon, Evans, and James were chatting away. He wondered where Vance was, usually they were attached at the hip, but no one knew the schedule of an Unspeakable, and it's not as if he could ask.

"We've got Hogsmeade watch this week," James said, before Sirius even came to a stop.

"Brilliant," Sirius grinned. The last couple of times, James had gone with Lily, and Sirius had gone with Dearborn. Nothing quite like having an Obliviator with you for going incognito, but they had little reason to be hanging out together, so it was lonelier. Anyone seeing him and James together, it was just mates hanging out, wasn't it? "Meadowes wants something broken into, depends on the protection charms involved. They mucked about with breaking some of the codes last night."

"Dung doing it?" James asked, disappointment evident.

"Dunno why she'd mention it to me if he was," Sirius pointed out. "Dung can blend in Knockturn, but some of these bastards look so posh and respectable that he'd stick out like a sore thumb. Got any glamours in your bag of tricks, Evans?"

"Potter," James 'corrected'.

Lily rolled her eyes, though it wasn't completely clear who it was directed at. Probably both of them.

"I'm sure I could manage it," she responded without missing a beat. "Any requests?"

"Let's see where we're going first," Sirius decided. "What are you doing?"

"Brewing with Benjy. I have a batch of polyjuice that needs attention, and he's helping me restock our healing stores," Lily said.

From the corner of his eye, Sirius saw a familiar blonde head. "You're late!" he hollered over.

"Sorry," Peter said, shimmying through the tables. "I thought we were never going to close."

"Go find out who're surveilling with, will you?" Sirius said, looking around.

"Knowing my luck, probably Moody," Peter sighed.

"Moody's got the best stories," James said.

"If you don't mind listening about people's bollocks being blown off," Sirius added. Back at the central swot table, he could see Remus and Gideon still talking intensely about something, and he didn't like not knowing what it was. "Wandless dueling tomorrow, sixish?"

"Better make it seven," James said. "They're making an announcement whether the Quidditch will go ahead next year."

"So if they say no, you'll be head down bawling the whole time?" Sirius asked. "Brilliant."

"Only way you'd win against me," James said.

"We'll see tomorrow, " Sirius said, glancing back over to the other conversation.

James looked over his shoulder. "Don't you get enough of staring at Moony at home?"

"Ours is an encompassing love," Sirius replied. "Maybe Lily can have that with her next husband. We planning this heist, or what?"

* * *

Number Twelve Grimmauld Place had been silent when Regulus had returned home from Gideon's puzzle group, not long after midnight. Whether or not his mother had noticed the length of his absence, he could not say, but her look the next morning was keen and arguably severe. Of course, she had not been very happy with him since he had come home, so that did not necessarily mean that her exacting gaze was in response to his late night... Nonetheless, he felt some degree of conviction in the look, regardless of its trigger.

Regulus did not care for the cold interactions at all, but he supposed he did deserve them, worrying her like he did.

They would be leaving for Porth Iago in the next few days, just as they had for every July in his conscious memory. For a panicked moment, Regulus had found himself hoping that he had not left any blood on the wooden floor, that night after the cave, but his arm had not been cut so badly that he had been unable to control it with a press, and he had avoided the furniture well enough… Perhaps he could do a quick glance around when they got there…

Packing his trunk for Wales did not take long, early though it was, but he did go back and forth for some time before deciding to shove the locket horcrux in his suitcase to keep it accessible, should the opportunity for experimentation arise. They would be gone for a month, and although the holidays were rife with social obligation, he hoped to find some time to himself to see what progress could be made.

Severus Snape was not one to holiday with the Society crowd, whatever their Hogwarts friendships, but Regulus had the itch to see what he might have to say about destructive solutions. Since leaving Andromeda's, Regulus had felt torn as to whether it was completely idiotic to even acknowledge any intent to interact with new and volatile potions, but as he settled back home, he supposed it was not actually that suspicious to look for productive activities to fill each day. He had no intention of seeking a formal occupation at the moment—perhaps something freelance and interest-driven, as his father had done—and better to further his learning than to stagnate…

It was by this reassurance that Regulus found himself wandering into the Knockturn Alley apothecary in search of one Severus Snape. Only as he was walking along the first aisle did it occur to him that he wasn't actually certain if Severus worked on Sundays, but taking a look at their stock was not going to be a waste of his time, regardless. They had no shortage of dangerous ingredients; it would simply be a matter of which combinations might push past whatever defense mechanisms the Dark Lord had put on his locket.

When he reached the back of the apothecary, Regulus noticed that the door to some back room was cracked open. Glancing over at the counter, he saw that there was a young man there, probably keeping an eye on the ingredients and managing purchases. He couldn't be any older than Regulus himself, or perhaps he just looked young. Regardless, Regulus did not recognise him.

"Is Severus Snape working today?"

The young man looked up, watched Regulus for a second, then something subtle shifted in his expression as he seemed to decide that Regulus was a person worth answering.

"He's brewing in the back." A gesture towards the door.

For a beat, Regulus waited for further information, but when none came, he gathered that more specific communication was necessary. "I can go back, then?"

"No, customers aren't allowed in there," came the exceptionally unhelpful response, punctuated with a shrug.

Regulus's jaw tightened just slightly, but his voice was calm—if clipped—when he said, "Do you intend to get him?"

"S'pose," he said, stretching, and there was far less urgency than Regulus would have liked as the young man disappeared through the door for several long seconds, then returned again. "He's busy."

"When will he _not_ be busy?" Regulus asked flatly.

Another brief disappearance, and then: "About two minutes, when he finishes stirring."

Two minutes. 'Busy,' indeed. "I will wait."

And wait he did, eyeing the dried foxglove petals and leaves in a container to his right. When Severus came out, his expression was mildly put upon, but when he saw Regulus, some amount of that annoyance faded to at least something more neutral.

"I am not impressed with the quality of assistance," Regulus said dryly.

Severus did not look particularly thrilled either as he shot a withering look at the oblivious target of their irritation. "He has been here a week. With luck, he will not last another."

Trying to shake off some of the annoyance, Regulus shifted his thoughts to why he had come in the first place. "I've been looking through an advanced potions text I borrowed from Bella this past spring. Some of the ingredients are more rare and volatile, so I was curious as to whether this apothecary does special orders."

"Taking up recreational potion-making, are you?" Severus asked, though it was difficult to read his tone.

"Something of the sort," Regulus responded with a meaningful look that he hoped was ambiguous enough to suggest it might be for Death Eater purposes, but not so much that it would be an inconvenience if Severus were to follow up and find no such task.

Fortunately, he did not seem to be pushing it. The level of ambiguity must have hit the mark. "Provide a list of what you need, and I will see what we can do." Severus's mouth thinned a little. "However, you should reconsider attempting to brew anything above your established skill level. I find myself interacting with more than one person who would become unbearable if you blew your head off."

"Is that an offer to oversee?" Regulus asked, deciding then that it was excusable enough, as far as sudden interests went, and that bringing Snape into that aspect was probably better than dying by potion-brewing accident.

"I will consider it," Severus said, though he did not look unhappy about it. Regulus was rather confident in his own potion-making abilities, but he could nonetheless admit that Snape had been prodigious in the subject, and if he could make this process more efficient… then Regulus's plans would benefit, and his friend could experience the pride of being a superb potioneer. Everybody won.

"Thank you." Regulus tipped his head. "I trust you are doing well?"

"As well as can be expected," Severus said, dryly, and Regulus wondered if it was related at all to the moron behind the small counter. "What of yourself? I expect you are feeling better, after your vanishing act?"

Regulus held his face neutral and accepted that he was probably going to hear that a lot, from every individual person he interacted with. It had only been a few days, but there was little to gain in arguing that.

"People can be exhausting, as you know," Regulus offered, and his friend's expression suggested that he did, in fact, know that sentiment well.

"Keep me apprised, and I will do the same."

"Of course," Regulus said. "Do you plan to come to Iago at all?"

"No more than usual," Snape responded, which was to say maybe once or twice, to appease Evan and Mulciber's whims. Severus did not seem to care for the beach, but recent years had dragged him for occasional visits, now that there were Death Eater plans to drum up within their social circle. Nearly every Death Eater Regulus knew spent at least part of their summer on the Welsh coastline, with the exception of the werewolves, though he wasn't sure they actually counted…

"I will see you there, if so," Regulus said. "Otherwise, we can arrange another time, after I send the list."

"That will do."

"I will let you get back to your brewing." Regulus gestured slightly towards the door near the back, still cracked open. "Take care, in the meantime."

"And you," Snape said, and within a beat, Regulus had turned to leave, sparing only a second to scowl at the young man who still didn't seem to be paying their interaction any mind.

It went without saying that the next time he and Snape saw each other might be behind masks, depending on the will of the Dark Lord, but once again, Regulus tried to calm the sudden turn in his stomach and focus on the present. As things were, he would have to take things as they came.


	6. The Meaning of Normalcy

**Note:** The set up continues! As a quick note: There are some occasional references to passive suicidal ideation that will come up on occasion because of the mix of issues Regulus is working through and the complicated self-worth issues we interpret in the Blacks. It won't be super prevalent, but he's very much still stuck in an unhealthy environment (and unhealthy relationships), and digging into that over time is going to be a big part of the story - just in case those issues are hangups for anyone, wanted to mention it early on!

* * *

 **Chapter 6: The Meaning of Normalcy**

* * *

It was the day before their departure for Porth Iago, but with the close of lunch came an unanticipated strike of anxiety, sending Regulus's thoughts into a spin. Perhaps an invitation to take tea with his mother oughtn't make his stomach turn with nervousness, but he could not easily remember the last time she had done so, and with the recent risk-taking, he could not help the worry that she had somehow clued into his duplicity in no longer than a week, despite the care taken to keep everything neatly separate.

The feeling billowed in his mind like a stormcloud, however bright the summer sun was burning in through the window. As they sat down across from each other in the drawing room, Regulus tried to keep his face held in neutrality, but it was strangely difficult to remember how to act natural when one was trying very hard to act natural… to not look at the table so much that he appeared guilty, not to look at her directly so much that he appeared challenging.

Settling on a straightened posture - tense, at first, then forcibly relaxed - he flicked his eyes up at her, back down to his tea, and took a silent sip.

For her part, his mother said little. She drank the tea silently, giving no indication of an ulterior motive beyond looking him over in an uncomfortably close way. Eventually, the moment broke, and she leaned forward, forcibly setting down the teacup and teapot upon the side table.

"So you are a young man now," she said, without preamble. He had been a young man since turning seventeen, but the way she said it made it seem as if this were a much more recent development. "It has been a difficult transition. In better circumstances, your father would be here to have such a discussion, but dwelling upon what may have been is for the follied, weak, or mere dim-witted. I may trust you to be none of these things?" It sounded equal parts question and statement.

On the bright side, it did not sound like the start of an accusatory conversation, so Regulus let the thudding in his chest relax, if only a little. "I am none of those things," he confirmed, hoping it sounded more confident than careful.

That answer seemed to satisfy her, so perhaps it was a question after all. "No, you are not; you are my son." Her tone indicated this was less of a statement and closer to what could be considered a compliment for anyone else. "There are fewer people left who that can be said of, even in our own house. It is my regret that this has burdened you, as it once did me, with the responsibility of lineage. I have never been given the impression you have interest in such matters, and nor was I, but we are practical people. While the war is of noble cause, if you should perish, then a thousand years perishes with you. It would be responsible to make sure this isn't the case. Do you understand?"

The words settled awkwardly, forming rapidly into the realisation that she was talking about the pursuit of marriage and children - the continuation of their noble and ancient line. He had expected more time before that particular responsibility bore down on him, but he supposed it was difficult to pass along the name when one was dead, and she was not wrong about chance of perishing.

If anything, he was more likely to die in this war than she realised.

"I understand," he responded, resisting an uncomfortable shift. Perhaps this was an appropriate time to mention that he actually intended to leave the Death Eaters, that support in such a decision may well reduce the need to rush quite so rapidly, but his jaw had frozen itself shut.

In the past week, there had been no opportunity to sweep for additional information from the Death Eaters - everything had just felt unnervingly... normal. He needed more time if he was going to give that limited window a chance, but it felt like stepping into a mud pit… a sinking step that dropped deeper than expected. His mind was spinning once again, but his mother seemed satisfied enough by his response as she continued on:

"Then I shall be brief. Unlike what I imagine your younger cousin has said, or worse, her mother, I do not recommend a... _romantic_ attachment. These things often fade, leaving resentment and discontent if they are sought after by one of Druella's silly little fancies. A solid partnership based on mutual agreement on key subjects and living arrangements is far more desirable in the long term." Walburga gave a frank nod, but to what she was nodding, it was impossible to say. "I know these parties are often filled with vapid and boring people, but it will give you a chance to find the best chances of your own compatibility. Take note of a few candidates, we can arrange some privacy to explore the options. A winter engagement would preferable to give time for a summer wedding. Do not bring me someone weak; we both know you have a mild disposition, and while it has its place, a child like Bellatrix would run rings around you."

The conversation felt as though it had escalated quickly - winter was less than six months away, but his mother's tone was so matter-of-fact that he did not think it would be beneficial to draw attention to that.

To his mother's points, Regulus did not particularly want a wife that was similar to Bellatrix, regardless of any future children's dispositions, but surely there was something between 'weak' and 'Bellatrix.' Perhaps more importantly, it was unclear what his mother defined as 'weak,' but Regulus had a sneaking suspicion that he would be a less appealing marriage candidate before winter, anyway. Their circles rarely appreciated defection and fraternizing with traitors, and his resolve to stop the Dark Lord still burned hot in his chest. The thought of trying to endure five more months as a Death Eater was an agonising one, but if the line was in question, perhaps there was some bargaining to leverage…

A risk, but everything seemed to be, no matter how he spun it. Somehow, he doubted their 'key subjects' would be as compatible as he knew he ought to make them seem, but if he could extend the process long enough, it might not matter, in the end…

"Of course. I will keep that in mind," Regulus settled with a slight nod.

"Very well," his mother replied. "Before we leave Iago, at the latest. Preferably before, so I can arrange something to tell your grandmother before she decides you require setting up when you're fully capable."

The thought of his grandmother picking a wife for him felt more than a little bit embarrassing, so he nodded more firmly, this time. "Before sounds like the preferable option."

Walburga stood, the conversation seeming over. Then she stopped for a beat. "I would also not recommend a Parkinson," she said, as an afterthought. "If that ridiculous nose overruled yours, it's going to make you having grandchildren much less likely."

Adding 'not a Parkinson' to the mental list, Regulus took another sip of his tea, then responded, "I will be certain to preserve our nose aesthetic."

"This is not something to be taken lightly," Walburga sniped back. "I will not be here forever, and we can ill afford any further failures."

Regulus tried not to wince at the change in her tone. He did not think it seemed very fair to scold him when she had remarked on the Parkinsons' noses just seconds before, but he did not dare say as much. This was an instructional interaction, not so much a reciprocal conversation, so perhaps commentary did not have a place.

"Of course," he said, eyes flicking first to her, and then to the tapestry. A thousand years, indeed, all funneling down to him, now. As if he needed anyone to tell him that. "I do not take it lightly."

"Being able to add your children to the tapestry is a heady feeling," his mother added in a muted tone. "There hasn't been a child added since you, and if you are lucky, they will be as easily contented as you were and understand the legacy put before them as you do."

Silently, Regulus nodded again, feeling that legacy like a physical weight on his shoulders. His cousins could do nothing for the name - they were married into other families - and Sirius had been out of the picture for years. His own name looked so isolated, there at the bottom, next to his brother's darkened scorch mark. Guilt prickled at his thoughts as he pictured the locket tucked away in the floor above - what had nearly happened to obtain it - what would happen if the Dark Lord discovered that he obtained it…

Would his mother forgive him? Or would she have preferred that he drown in that cave?

Something cold crawled over his skin like dragging claws, reaching in to yank his breath right out of his throat. He blinked at the tapestry, still as a statue as he tried to calm the sudden feeling of panic - but he managed a curt nod in response, hoping it was satisfactory, at the least.

"You should excuse yourself," his mother said. "You have much to think on."

Rising from his seat, Regulus kept his eyes trained on the tapestry, worried that she might see something in his face if he were to turn his attention back to her.

"I do," he said, concentrating on a steady tone. "Thank you for the advice."

His mother merely said, "You're excused."

Not wanting to stretch the moment any longer than he had to, Regulus left his tea on the table and strode out into the hallway. Even then, he could feel his ancestors' eyes and their expectations on him as he made a straight line up the stairs to his room. On the other side of his door, he could think, could steady himself, could collapse into that feeling that still raked at him - but even with the door shut, he couldn't stop his thoughts from spinning or his palms from clamming.

The afternoon sun was creeping in through the window, giving his room a dim glow, but Regulus swished his wand to close the curtains and collapsed onto the bed. Burying his face in the bedspread, he pulled a pillow over his head and locked his arms behind it, letting out a huff into the fabric as the world muffled around him.

 _I should have just left_ , he thought, imagining himself just walking out the door, down the street, disappearing into a crowd and following that crowd until it trickled out to some remote place that no one would look to find him. No disappointed looks from Sirius for coming back home - no disappointed looks from his mother for wanting to leave. No Death Eaters, no locket, no expectations, no marriages, no obligations-

-No family, no history, no legacy, no tip against the Dark Lord… a thousand-year chain broken and a horrific plan unchecked, all for his own convenience.

It was not so terrible to get married; he had expected it would come soon enough, even if he had not expected his mother to suggest it quite _this_ soon. Perhaps the weight of the war was trying for her, too, though it did not make him feel much better that she was about as confident in his survival as he was, which was to say not very confident at all. He was the last thread in their family name - leverage, he knew, in whatever ultimatum he leveled at her, at all of them - but if it wasn't enough… or if it was enough, but they all chilled to him for his trouble…

For a moment, drowning in the lake felt like it might have been simpler, but he pressed the heels of his hands to his temple, as if to rub the thought away. Wallowing wasn't going to fix anything, he knew - wasn't going to destroy a horcrux or fend off a Death Eater, wasn't going to persuade a mother or solve a marriage conundrum.

Steeling himself again, Regulus forced himself to sit back up, shoving away the temptation to just hole away for the rest of the day. A plan - he just needed to think. He just needed to be careful. He had until winter before anything would be official - sufficient time to poke around the ranks and find the right way to state his case to his family. Perhaps if he focused on political neutrality rather than strengthening any Death Eater ties, he wouldn't end up with in-laws who wanted to murder him… and hopefully ones that did not want to arrest him, either...

He swished open the blinds again. Still bright with sunshine, as if nothing had changed at all. Perhaps nothing _had_ changed.

* * *

Arriving in Porth Iago had felt very much like it always did, despite the chaos thrumming in Regulus's own life. The coastal village was relatively quiet during the weekdays, line with small shops and cafes that had, at most, a few patrons milling in and out - primarily locals, from Regulus's observations. Most of Society swooped in on weekends, all culminating in the final week of July when the village filled itself with the remaining circles, all taking their holidays. With staggering consistency, the week was always brimming with a multitude of events in an exhaustingly small period of time.

Only a handful of families owned their own properties, opening the entire month to a Welsh beachside getaway. Within his circle of friends, Evan Rosier was presently his only companion. Fortunately enough, he rather liked Evan - responsible, dignified, and a cousin to his cousins - and though Regulus did wish that Barty's Ministry job did not hold him back from more frequent visits, Evan was essentially family, for all intents and purposes, and the next best company.

Content though Regulus might be to simply wrap himself in the solitude of books and off-the-books experimentation, when Evan invited him to look at a new batch of material he was responsible for translating, Regulus decided to accept. There would be plenty of time to slog through solutions to his horcrux problem in the endlessly stretching summer days.

"What is the subject matter?" Regulus asked, folding his arms primly on the table and peering at the open pages - not a language he was familiar with, as it turned out.

"Cursed weaponry in eastern Europe," Evan answered, sweeping a loose, dark blonde curl away from his forehead. The darker shade aside, he had always looked more similar to Narcissa than Regulus himself did - a resemblance that (unsurprisingly) converged on his Aunt Druella.

"Runic or enchanted?"

"Enchanted, it looks like," Evan responded, "but I'm still working my way through it."

Flipping through a few pages of the bound parchment, Regulus saw little in the way of illustrations about the sort of weaponry in question. Perhaps it was more broad in nature, or perhaps it's author did not prefer a visual approach.

"You are translating it to English, I assume?" When Evan confirmed as much, Regulus added, "Might I have a look at the finished product?"

"You don't trust my summarisation?" Evan asked, a bit huffily, though it was probably in jest.

His tone dry and light, Regulus responded, "I prefer parsing it myself. Call it a matter of familial privilege."

"That will be reciprocal, I hope," Evan quipped back. "What are you going to do, now that you're out of school?"

 _Figure out how to destroy a horcrux_ was the first thought, followed by _get married or killed, I suppose_ , but neither felt like fitting responses, so instead he said, "I have yet to decide. Runes have been my pursuit of the week, perhaps in respect to artifacts."

"Like your father," Evan commented, and it stung a little, but Regulus kept his face still as he nodded. Rustling the parchment in his hand, Evan added, "You do have a knack for this sort of thing. Maybe you can enchant us all some daggers."

Regulus did not think enchanting daggers sounded like anything he wanted to do at all, nor was it anything that he particularly wanted to equip his Death Eater brethren with, even if he could - but his wan smile seemed to satisfy Evan, who resumed poking at his parchment while Regulus fetched entertainment from the bookshelf. Perhaps an hour passed, with occasional chatter flitted between them, when Evan stacked his parchment and pushed it to the center of his table.

"I've had enough of this for the day. Let's go to the beach," Evan announced.

Regulus had never been particularly fond of 'going to the beach' as an activity, but he was not prepared for the lurch in his stomach at the thought of going anywhere near a large body of water at all. A thrum had triggered, as heavy in his chest as it was light in his head, and his fingers twisted up in his sleeve like some flimsy anchor.

"I should actually be going," Regulus said, though it seemed a strange thing to say when it was still late afternoon. Evan's quizzical looks seemed to suggest he thought the same thing, so Regulus added, "As it is, I'm in the middle of a personal project, myself, but there will be plenty of time to relax later."

There was a measure of disappointment in Evan's expression, perhaps in tandem with the realisation that he wouldn't have the company, but that expression soon melted into something like acceptance. "That's adulthood for you."

The locket's emerald gleam flashed in his mind's eye as Regulus stood up, helping to straighten the table as he made some faint attempt at clearing his own unwelcome thoughts, replacing them with a busyness that was easier to guide than his own restless nerves.

"That's adulthood."

* * *

A few more days passed before Barty was able to visit Iago. Perhaps Bellatrix would be sour if she realised Regulus was taking an evening with his friend without alerting her to his presence; after all, she preferred to maximise their training opportunities anytime the two boys were in proximity to each other. Even so, Regulus privately thought that being a Death Eater had already taken enough from him - dodging Bella was unlikely to remain successful for long, but he would enjoy the time while he had it.

Any moment with Barty could realistically be the last, if his crime was discovered - whether through death or disownment - and the thought settled over him with a sense of melancholy.

Barty had recommended a nighttime beach spot, but the past few days had done nothing for his nerves, and even the thought of approaching that dark rush of water still made Regulus's palms go clammy. Instead, he suggested the roof: a flat space, tucked between inclines, hidden away without feeling claustrophobic. Barty's shoulder was shoved up against his as they lay flat and staring up at a swath of stars. Regulus imagined the same scene, but without the strains of war, perhaps lounging in some foreign country where no one would have any expectations of them at all. He felt a fresh wave of guilt for continuing to entertain that sort of abandonment, and guiltier still for how comforting the train of thought had felt, if only for a moment. Even so, it was not the first time, and he supposed it was unlikely to be the last, so he swallowed the feeling as best he could.

"I can barely even think of the last time I felt this relaxed," Barty said, breaking into his thoughts, all too appropriately. "NEWTs, finally behind us… the first night since the start of my internship that my slavedriving father hasn't required me to work long past my hours," he added, more bitterly.

"Are you privy to any confidential international secrets yet?" Regulus asked, lightly, trying to keep his mind from dwelling on the implications that a positive answer would could have, from now on. The Dark Lord, expanding internationally...

"Not yet," Barty quipped back, knocking their propped knees together. "Should any come my way, I will be sure to spill them to you immediately."

Regulus's mouth flicked up slightly, letting a beat of silence pass before asking, "Are the people in international cooperation better or worse than law enforcement?"

"Fewer Gryffindor types, which I would qualify as an improvement."

"I suspected as much."

"It will take time, but I just know my placement will be vital, as the Dark Lord expands his influence," Barty said with a reverence that made Regulus's stomach turn and his jaw set with an uncomfortable tightness. There they were. The implications. "Just imagine it…"

Regulus had no difficulty imagining a world where the Dark Lord controlled the international sphere with a split soul that could not die, but he knew he could not muster any enthusiasm with that sticky dryness in his throat, so he just nodded.

Either Barty sensed the movement in the dim starlight, or he decided to press on anyway as he added, "How glorious, it will be. No more hiding, our enemies stamped out, little by little. We are getting closer, I can feel it."

The more Barty spoke, the more Regulus did not want to talk about it - a feeling that grew more suffocating by the second - so he wracked his brain for topics. At first, he could only think of his mother's task for him, but Barty did not like to talk about marriage any more than Regulus did, so with another grasping thought, he settled on Evan, instead.

"Evan was showing me a set of translations he is working on." The shift was abrupt, but Barty tilted his face towards Regulus attentively. "Enchanted weaponry. I'm curious about how extensive the material will be." Treacherously, his thoughts shifted back to the locket, not so far below him and tucked into this house's floorboards. "There are some protections and enchantments that withstand just about anything you throw at it… I wonder what sort of magic it takes to break through spells like that."

"Is there something you want to break?" Barty asked.

"Nothing in particular," Regulus lied, yet he could feel the momentum of his words lining up to roll off of his tongue. "I have, however, been thinking about what sort of interesting pursuits to fill my time with, now that the structure of school has lifted, and I have been torn most between runic magic and higher level enchantments. I have even thought to prod Severus about how such things might interact with more complex potions. After all, magic can come together in unexpected ways, and those interactions are rarely explored in depth."

"An interesting line of thought," Barty remarked thoughtfully. "Did you see anything interesting in those runic texts we were flipping through, then?"

"No, but those were rather basic," Regulus responded, and it was the truth. "If there is anything to be found, it probably won't be from Flourish and Blotts, however much I might value its other contents."

"You're probably right." Barty nodded. "Should you think of anything particularly intriguing, please let me know. My life has become very dull in just these few, soul-sucking weeks in Ministry employ. There isn't much intellectual stimulation in shuffling papers for people who refuse to invite you into anything that might be mistaken for interesting or important."

"Even if it becomes late, you are always welcome to visit," Regulus began, though he kept his eyes upward, locked on the dome of Welsh beachside stars, "if you'd like to fit in some manner of meaningful conversation before the next dull day begins."

"Be careful what you offer - I am likely to take you up on it to avoid my mind turning to mush."

"What a terrible waste, that would be."

"Of your time, right?"

"Of my time, yes," Regulus said with injected sincerity, "That's why I invited you. I love wasting my time."

Barty punctuated the exchange with a shoulder shove that cracked the taut tension in Regulus's chest. The lingering press of his arm felt overly warm for a summer night, but he did not particularly mind it.

Their eyes met when Barty flicked a look over, but only for a beat before looking up again, stretching his outer arm under his head like a makeshift pillow. "Your hospitality could use some work."

"But you must admit my lying is improving," Regulus quipped, his chest panging.

"Dramatically so. I feel much more comfortable with you supporting my illness story now," Barty quipped back with a crooked smile. "A week can make all the difference, as it turns out."

Regulus just nodded at the sky. "It certainly can."

* * *

The first major social event of the season landed on the following Friday night, swelling Porth Iago with a fresh wave of Society, if only for a few days. The Malfoys were hosting the gathering, and an extensive spread of guests were spread across the grounds of their summer home manor. Regulus had seen his cousin Narcissa in passing as she flitted back and forth, playing hostess, but it seemed better to wait until the initial rush had calmed before pulling her away. The majority of his family was in attendance - his grandparents on both sides, his Aunt Lucretia and Uncle Ignatius, Uncle Cygnus and Aunt Druella… He had not yet seen his Great Aunt Cassiopeia, but she had always been inconsistent in her attendance, perhaps preferring her odd little house by the port. Though she struck him as more bizarre than unkind, she did seem to prefer animals to people...

Barty had been unable to come back again for the weekend, and Regulus felt his absence keenly. Bella could still pull Regulus aside, even by himself, but on the positive side, at least she was unlikely to blatantly interrupt her little sister's party, especially on such a public scale. They were only a small part of it, not terribly noticeable in the grand scheme of it, but if luck was on his side, perhaps she would excuse herself at the point of boredom rather than excusing him along with her…

A glance towards the nearest table of hors d'oeuvres, Regulus could see that Mulciber and Wilkes had come, too, and had already found Evan. Gathered in little pockets around were several of their Slytherin classmates: Persephone Greengrass chatting away with Seraphina Travers and Delilah Burke, eating what looked to be little cakes of some sort; Aster Parkinson was tucked in a corner with Evadne Flint, looking more interested in each other than anything on the tables; and Evan's little sister Ruth was chatting away with Sage Parkinson and the even littler Clarice Avery.

His 'task' - the non-traitorous one - was prickling at the back of his mind, however stressful it might be to actually initiate the process. His mother had stated it like it would be simple: a pureblood who he felt neutral about (and who felt neutral about him) - who was mild enough that the thought of interaction was not inherently stressful (but who could maintain some level of interaction with the more intense members of his family) - whose family was not tightly linked with traitorous behavior (but for his own sake, not linked to the Death Eaters, either) - who was not too young, too old, or too disinterested in the prospect of marriage and heirs...

Reviewing the list did not make him feel much better, but he knew Sera was not as ideal an option as he might have thought some months ago. Truthfully, his own concerns were more rooted in her Death Eater older brother, more so than his mother's concern about the possibility that he might find a wife who felt affectionately towards him. Such distance seemed lonely, but there was some logic to a lack of complications - friends were perhaps better for that, anyway. Persephone was agreeable enough but far too close with Sera, and the thought of trying to justify himself felt both exhausting and unnecessarily rude towards Sera…

No one in the group seemed quite right, to those points. Even if Delilah was not interested in Mulciber, she was rather more intense than he preferred; furthermore, her family co-owned Bourgin & Burke's, and Regulus would rather not complicate his access to dark objects, should extended interaction go sour. His friends' sisters felt too young… the Flint girl was soon to be a Parkinson girl, he presumed…

Having whittled them away from his considerations, he felt slightly more comfortable in approaching the group as a whole, but he had not quite reached Evan when another voice caught his attention:

"Regulus - it's good to see you," Sera was saying as she turned towards him. "Are you feeling better?"

Discomfort returned, and he felt a little worse than he'd expected, lying to her. However, this particular lie was as much about minimising his absence as anything else, and the circumstances of that absence tied in with the Death Eaters… so he tipped his head in a small nod. 'Feeling' could apply to physical or emotional maladies, so it was not completely untruthful…

Out of the corner of his eye, Regulus saw Mulciber starting to smirk. The assumption was unpleasant, but inviting the group of them into his business would probably still be worse. He did not particularly want their commentary, spoken or unspoken, but even if he explained himself, the smirk would just be accompanied by remarks about requiring his mother's approval. The situation was far more delicate than that, tangled in a betrayal he could not exactly tell them about...

"I am, yes," Regulus confirmed, though his stance was still shifting towards Evan and the others. He was terrible at this - was he acting strange? Was he acting normal? He had never given his interactions with the girls much thought, before, and this hyperawareness was exceptionally uncomfortable. Politely, he added, "Thank you for asking."

Her expression might have been waiting for something else, but Regulus was relieved when Evan cut in: "Regulus, there you are." It sounded a little odd, considering Regulus had been standing there for several seconds already, but he would not spit in the face of social rescue. "I was wondering when you would come over. I made some progress with those translations."

It was a welcome shift, and Regulus dipped another polite nod to Sera, silently excusing himself in the direction of the others, even if it was only a few strides away.

Even as Evan launched into what he had found, Regulus wished he could see the manuscript itself, but perhaps he could ask again, without the whole group around. As interesting as the general overview might be, an overview may well miss useful information, and he was admittedly curious if enchanted weaponry might be beneficial in destroying the locket…

They had been chatting for some time before everyone started to break off again - Mulciber calling for Delilah, Evan with Wilkes. Under normal circumstances, this would be the point where he would break off with Barty - and Regulus preferred it that way - but with another late night keeping Barty at the Ministry, he decided that milling about on his own was preferable to just tagging along with the others arbitrarily.

What he wanted to do was find a quiet corner to read in, but he was supposed to be making a list, and he did not particularly want to explain that he had failed to produce one because he had been more in the mood to spend quality time with a book, even if that was absolutely the truth of it.

The expectation was spending time - if not quality time - with a bunch of girls he did not know, and he supposed it was better to do so at a structured event than to try to contact people individually…

He ran through the families in his mind, once again. The Parkinsons, Prewetts, Ollivanders, and Shacklebolts were all at least a handful of years older than him (and his mother had spoken against the Parkinsons, even if they were not)… Perhaps the Macmillans, the Fawleys, the Shafiqs, or the pureblood Abbotts… Or Matilda Bulstrode… He could see her relaying an animated story to Priya Shafiq and a few others in the years below him. Social was not bad, and he supposed it could take some of the pressure off of him to extend _himself_ socially, but he knew she was planning to pursue the Wizarding Academy of Dramatic Arts after graduation, and to be frank, he probably had enough dramatic arts in his family without the formal addition. Just the thought was a little bit exhausting.

Priya Shafiq was a Ravenclaw and seemed reasonable enough, though she seemed to have her eye on either Evan or Wilkes; it was difficult to tell, given the amount of time they spent in the same general area. Regardless, he was not interested in making a competition of it, and certainly not setting himself up to be second from the start. The Macmillans, Abbotts, and Fawleys had a mix of Houses… primarily Hufflepuff, it seemed, with scattered Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, but little overlap with his own House. Gryffindor was not an option, and Ravenclaw felt most similar to his own, but Hufflepuff was not so bad. Hufflepuffs had married into his family before, so it was hardly unprecedented. That certainly communicated a measure of neutrality, though he wondered at his mother's response. Would it be too obvious, leaning so heavily neutral? Perhaps he ought to put one of his housemates on the list for the sake of show, but if he did so, he supposed it opened the door to that person being considered a preference, and then he could still end up with a Death Eater supporter at best, or in law at worst…

Though Regulus had never wished for a truly neutral Slytherin pureblood classmate before, he had to admit it would have been convenient, right about now.

He was not milling for much longer before he found a quiet corner. Seated at one of the round tables was one of the Fawley girls (Abigail, as he recalled), head ducked down over some parchment, though he could not tell what she was writing. Neutral, of course, with perhaps the exception of the one who went on to become an Auror, now that he thought of it. Aurors could be a concern, but if he recalled correctly, the relation was not particularly close - and unlike the Auror in question, this branch still seemed to be attending. Perhaps it could even be helpful in the long run, though he felt a little hesitant, even thinking about it too seriously.

There was not much in this corner of the room that he could pretend to be preoccupied with, but hovering was more awkward, still. He tried to keep the longing from his expression as he looked towards the hallway that led to the Malfoys' library, wishing that it wasn't visibly rude to carry around a book around his cousin's party. It would have been a nice social buffer - perhaps a bit closer to the end...

The question of what she was writing occurred to him first, but that might be invasive, coming from someone unfamiliar. Not entirely a stranger, perhaps - he'd seen her before, sometimes existing silently along the walls of past gatherings - but she was a Hufflepuff in the year below, and not a common interaction. Unfamiliarity felt strangely reassuring to Regulus at the moment, but he recognised that the chances that _she_ was grasping at straws to detangle her life from the Death Eaters, little by little, were far less likely.

Having already stood in place for what felt like too long, he went to the nearest display of drinks collected one, if only to give himself something to do (or pretend to do) with his hands. He thought he probably ought to talk to her before putting her on the list of marriage options. What if conversation was a chore? What if she wasn't actually as neutral as her larger family? It was strange to imagine anyone outright rejecting his family, at least within the context of Society, but the passing years suggested more and more that aberrations in the norm were not as uncommon as he had assumed as a child. He did not want to be the one to suffer an embarrassment due to careless assumptions.

Whatever she was working on still seemed to be holding her attention, but she was looking up at something - or someone - frequently enough that he started to wonder if she wasn't writing at all. A sketch, perhaps, based on the movement of her hand…

Wandering to the table beside her, he decided that it was a more comfortable distance - not too invasive, he didn't think. What exactly he was supposed to be doing was still a complete mystery, but it was too embarrassing to ask, so this was probably a reasonable approximation.

"Do you mind if I intrude?" he asked politely.

She froze, hand stilling immediately. "What?" Her voice had the distinctive air of someone caught doing something she ought not.

"May I sit here?" he rephrased, waving a hand vaguely at the table but taking care not to spill the punch. "I thought it might be best to ask, in case you were sitting alone on purpose."

"No, that's fine, completely fine." She took a quick look around the room. "I guess people wanted to dance. I wasn't alone when I sat down…"

"You looked a bit absorbed," he said as he sat down, this time setting down his drink before gesturing towards her written activity (whatever it had been). "Not much of a party person, I gather?"

"No, parties are wonderful." Abigail scrambled to place the parchment back into a bag waiting at her feet, smudging some of the ink on her fingers as she did so. "They're just loud, and there's a lot of people, and I can never remember anyone's names. As of this moment, I'm wishing I'd taken astronomy."

A relatable sentiment, for certain, though he had never had difficulty with remembering names, even from a young age. To say as much right after she had said it was difficult felt a bit too much like boasting, so he nodded, instead. "That only helps with a fraction of the attendees," he began, lightly. "You will have to study up on your botany and herbology for the Parkinsons."

"Graeco-Roman history for the Malfoys too," Abigail added. "I tried writing it on the back of my hand once, but I think I looked weird trying to look at the back of my hand for a name and descriptor."

"I can see how that method would end poorly. 'The pale, blonde Malfoy with the Graeco-Roman name' is not going to be very helpful," he quipped wryly. "Any more descriptive than that, and I imagine you would run out of space on your hand, even for one person."

"I'd need to then explain why I had writing all over me. I could get ink poisoning, or worse, seem inconsiderate," Abigail said. "I guess I could say it's performance art to Matilda, but no one else would buy into it at _all_."

Regulus expected that he would have gotten in trouble, had he written on himself, even as a child - but it had not occurred to him as an option at the time, so the point was probably moot. "No, probably not. It would take a special level of gullibility to believe a claim that you were turning your skin into a living family tree."

"So only Niamh," Abigail replied, turning a little pink. "That was mean, she knows I don't say it to be mean. The Macmillans are okay."

"Your tone was telling enough." Regulus nodded. "I have a Macmillan grandmother, myself, but I don't know most of them personally." Niamh Macmillan was among that majority, though he knew she was close to his age too - probably the same as Abigail, though that wasn't necessarily the case. He had always paid attention to fellow purebloods for the purpose of social referencing, but those distinguishing details had varied in priority...

"Is she smart?" Abigail asked.

"My grandmother?" Regulus clarified, lifting his brow sightly. "Of course she is. Though she may not be as smitten with the written word as my grandfather is - or my father, or my aunt, or myself, for that matter - it is not for a lack of sharpness or intelligence." The thought of his father jammed into his chest like a stake, but he could not bear to correct the statement to past tense, so he left it as it was.

"I didn't mean to question her intelligence. I just wondered if maybe they were were practical or innovative rather than academic as a rule." Abigail replied, indicating him. "I did guess academics for you, because you were a prefect and you have perfect fingernails."

Regulus had not taken particular notice of his fingernails, beyond cleanliness. Truthfully, the thought sparked a strange temptation to examine them, but he would look a bit silly, investigating the state of his fingers mid-conversation, so he resisted the urge. "An accurate deduction. To that point, my grandmother is a more practical sort. What about yourself?"

"I'm not stupid, but I don't test well. It's all that sitting in rows in silence, so everyone jumps if someone sneezes or you start getting weirdly aware of the ambient noises." Abigail made a shuddering gesture. "Being able to recite answers for a standardised test is not how I like to learn. I prefer a free form approach, where you can investigate what you find interesting or things that will be helpful to know. I don't know what that makes me, but I do know not once has turning a hedgehog into a pin cushion ever been helpful outside of learning to do it."

"Perhaps it might be useful for a robe maker with a very annoying hedgehog," Regulus mused, though he did think the hedgehog in this scenario was likely to disagree. "I prefer to absorb whatever I can, just in case, but of course interest and relevance guides how well it might retain. What NEWTs are you taking? You have one more year, yes?"

"Just this year. I've got charms, care of magical creatures - because there has to be something better to do with hedgehogs - herbology, and potions." Abigail listed them off on her fingers, then grimaced. "Excuse _my_ fingernails. Charcoal is not forgiving."

She must be unusually attuned to fingernails, he thought, or perhaps just fixated on the smudges on her own. Part of him supposed that his mother would not approve of charcoal fingers, but it did not feel worth leaving over, and his curiosity was piqued.

"Do you draw with it often?" he asked.

"Not if I can help it. It gets everywhere, but if I don't look busy, I'm going to get my niece dumped on me all night while my sister gossips about. I wouldn't mind so much, but her vocabulary is only around twenty words." Abigail shrugged. "I think you've said more than twenty, so you're winning the stimulating conversation contest."

"That is an exceptionally low bar, but I suppose a win is nevertheless a win," Regulus remarked, wryly. "What do you prefer, then, if not the charcoal?"

"Paint, water colouring. The wand control is easier than finger control," Abigail responded immediately. "Wandless magic is not my specialty. Is it yours?"

"I don't know that I would call it a specialty, but I can perform some spells wandlessly," Regulus responded. The summoning spell in particular had become a focus, should he be separated from his wand in some skirmish… and he wasn't comfortable with a wandless shield charm yet, but it seemed like it could be important too. That train of thought was assuredly not a point to highlight, and it only made him think of Bellatrix, so he shook it off for the moment. "Mostly for convenience, but it seems a versatile skill."

"Something to work on when I'm done learning how to do heating charms," Abigail said, lightly. "Do you miss school so already?"

"In some ways." The world felt smaller and less aggressive there, after all, but Hogwarts was a closed chapter, now. He knew hiding forever was unlikely to accomplish anything of substance… "However, there are plenty of learning opportunities beyond its walls, too, if bound by less structure."

"I'm looking forward to that part," Abigail said. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm doing a little bit of several things, at the moment," Regulus admitted with a small shrug. "I haven't settled on anything in particular, but possibly runes, charms, perhaps research if something of particular interest arises."

"Work the party scene?" she asked.

"I do expect a significant number of those in the coming months," he granted.

"Looking forward to it?"

It seemed rude to say parties were often draining, whilst attending his cousin's party. "There is usually good company, so I do like them. Summers are relatively standard, so I don't expect it to be too different from the norm." (Even as he said it, he supposed that looking for possible marriage partners was not exactly standard for him - nor was that the only non-standard part of it all.)

"At least there's nooks to hide in these ones," Abigail replied. "The Bulstrodes don't do that. Everything is all in the middle."

"I'm fond of nooks," he said, lightly. "The temptation for a library break is greater when I am related to the hostess, but that isn't necessarily a downside, either."

"I don't think I've ever been to one where I'm not related to the hosts in some way," Abigail replied. Regulus had meant close enough relation that it was not considered rude to just wander into any room he wanted - of course there was _some_ degree of connection - but he let the comment pass, rather than looping back, because she was already continuing: "Are you avoiding the inevitable 'so what are you going to do with your life now school is over' talks?"

"That conversation has been a popular topic, as of late," he said. "I do not intend to be idle, but lining up a formal occupation has not been a priority."

"What about informal?" Abigail reached to her bag, patting it. "You caught me at mine."

After flicking his eyes down to the bag, Regulus nodded. "I spend a great deal of time reading - sometimes focusing on different magical disciplines, but not always," he began in a thoughtful tone. "Occasional spell experimentation… I have some musical background in the piano but no artistic talent to speak of, I'm afraid."

"I don't know if talent is a factor. It's something you just have to keep working hard at, and if you like it, you'll work harder." Sheepishly, Abigail looked around the room and worried her bottom lip. "It's just expression, what you're paying attention to. See, over there, there's a really funny shaped bottle so I was trying to sketch it, but I guess I wasn't being subtle..."

"You can finish your sketch, if you would like. This is not a particularly busy corner," he said, finally remembering the punch he had set down some time ago. Before taking a sip, he added, "Do you typically focus on objects?"

"No," she replied, almost hesitantly. "But if people catch you drawing them, they can get upset either because you were paying that close attention or if they don't like the end product. I don't enjoy the yelling."

Pressing his mouth to a line, Regulus nodded. "That is understandable on all fronts. I don't particularly enjoy yelling or being yelled at either."

"You can just ask me to stop, so there's no need to be rude about it," Abigail said. "I don't think I could ever be a portrait painter. People are too mercurial."

Mercurial was an accurate description, though he was careful not to think too hard about examples in his own life, out of respect for the family members in question. "Portraiture is not what I would choose either, even if I had artistic ambitions."

"You could write," Abigail replied. "All forms of expression can be fun in the right context, but I guess you could run into the same problems where people could get annoyed if they think something is about them."

"That does seem similarly prone to disaster," he said, wryly. "I would rather avoid the public speculation."

"Given your desire to retreat to the library, you don't seem to like being public at all," Abigail said. "Anything for a quiet life?"

 _If only_ , Regulus thought with a thin smile, but aloud, he answered, "Life does not always lend itself to that, but I like to take the quiet when it comes."

"Me too," Abigail said. "There's so much chaos out there, being able to stop and take some breaths and see what's still beautiful is really so important to me."

Pensively, Regulus nodded. Chaos out there and chaos in here, but the latter seemed to be reserved for Regulus himself, he supposed. As his eyes flicked to the milling crowd of party goers, he spotted Bellatrix in a separate nook, standing near to the Lestranges, Lucius, and Demetrius Travers, though she didn't look as though she was specifically conversing with them. When their eyes met, she first lifted her brow, then tilted her head in a gesture that he knew he ought to interpret as a summons. It seemed like solid evidence as to why looking around a party was inferior to reading, but he could not avoid her forever.

"A worthy pursuit," he noted, picking up his punch as he stood again. "I believe my cousin wishes to speak with me, so I will leave you to it.

Abigail nodded, "Good luck."

He nodded, thinking he could probably use a bit of luck as he strode across the area to where his eldest cousin had been watching his approach.

"You have been unusually elusive, lately," Bella stated, frankly.

"I've just been at home, mostly," he replied, but her deadpan expression drove him to add, "The first few days back were necessary for recentering myself, but as it turns out, each summer is more of the same."

"I expect this one will mix things up for you." Her tone came to a meaningful point that he didn't like, mostly because he knew it was in reference to the Death Eaters, but he found himself nodding. That seemed to satisfy her. "Have you finished with that book? Potions, as I recall?"

Regulus flicked his mind back to the books tucked away in his suitcase. One of them was, in fact, a book on potions that he had borrowed from the Lestranges a few months ago when he'd been trying to absorb whatever information he could about the Dark Lord's strange cave object, but it had been more to mask him swiping a different book that he did _not_ tell her about, and his heart thundered a little at the thought. Carefully, he brought his thoughts to a halting stop, trying to keep his mind as clear as possible.

"Yes, they have piqued my curiosity." Regulus held himself a little taller to stretch out that twisting feeling inside. "My interest in potions remains relatively casual, but I've spoken a little with Severus on the matter."

"Your initiative is a step in the right direction," she said in a tone that was as close to applauding as she was likely to get. Regulus tried to keep his mind from wandering to how ironic that was. Standing before his cousin, it seemed like another time when he could share his newfound perspective to end the stress of this charade, but undoubtedly it was even more foolish to blurt it out in the presence of not one Death Eater, but several. How terrible it would be for Narcissa if they were to get blood all over the floor, and at a social do, no less. "You can get away with mediocrity during your time as a student," Bellatrix continued, not seeming to care much when Regulus bristled, "but it is time to put more effort towards your responsibilities."

Regulus wished there was less discussion about his responsibilities, as if he did not already know what they were in painstaking detail. To call him mediocre was an unnecessary jab, even if he knew it was his progress in Death Eater pursuits that she was criticizing. She preferred Barty's enthusiasm, and Evan's too - that much was not a surprise, but it stung no less. Nodding, instead, he bit his tongue.

"You don't look like you are relaxing at all."

The voice came from behind him, lofty and assertive but notably sweeter in tone. He did not need to turn to know it was Narcissa, but he turned, nonetheless to see that she had propped an hand on her hip, looking at her sister.

"This is a party, not a work event. Stop adding to his stress; he just finished his exams," she added.

"If he cannot handle a little stress, perhaps he could stand to build the tolerance," Bellatrix said. "He's not a child."

"You have set up a beautiful event, as always," he said to Narcissa, hoping to redirect from the topic of his stress. Based on her smile, it seemed to have worked, and though it was not completely true, he added, "Appropriately relaxing, whatever your reservations."

"I noticed you have been particularly social this evening, making the rounds without a book in sight," she said with an expectant tone and a knowing look to match.

Comparatively subtle as it was, the conversation was embarrassing, so he redirected again: "Indeed. And speaking of social, I recall that Temperance ought to have a new peacock companion by now. How is it adjusting?"

Narcissa seemed to recognise what he was doing immediately, but perhaps the temptation of an update was motivating enough to let the subject of young ladies pass for the moment. "Rather well. I do think it has improved her disposition significantly."

Bellatrix was rolling her eyes now, promptly losing interest.

Though it might not have been Narcissa's intent, he spent thanked her, nonetheless.

* * *

"I expressly forbid it!" James called back to Remus.

He'd left him down by the car of dubious origin so he could keep unloading Dumbledore's supplies. Newlyweds moving into their first house was giving them an excellent cover for smuggling things in for the Order to be picked up later, especially if Dung had picked them up, having 'fallen' off the back of a broom somewhere they shouldn't. He opened the door to the kitchen to let the floating bags take their place in the corner with the others. Potions supplies, he reckoned, but when Dung was the supplier, you could get a surprise or two in the process.

"Did you hear me?" James raised his voice this time.

"The entire borough heard you," Remus said.

As the last of the bags were floating up, he was already locking up the car. It'd be gone within the hour. James didn't know how Dung did it, but it could also have been Dumbledore. He wondered idly what age you have to be to become ineffable and able to do things like bend space and time to make entire vehicles disappear.

"I'm not even being that loud," James grumbled. It was his lot in life to be told he was being too loud. He ducked into the house, confronted with his wife. "Lil, am I being too loud?"

"There are probably people in Asia who still can't hear you," Lily quipped as she began investigating the bags and pulling out - unsurprisingly - the first of many potion supplies.

"Yet Elphias reckons I should speak up more," James huffed as Remus appeared in the doorway. "I still forbid it."

"I heard you the first time," Remus replied, evenly. He gave Lily a nod of hello, continuing to ignore the very serious matter at hand. "But since you are neither Dumbledore nor my parents, I don't think your forbidding it is going to have much impact."

"I don't care how polite he is, you cannot go hanging about with a Death Eater." James looked at Lily. "You neither. You can't fight them and invite them to social do's. It's confusing for their tiny brains."

Lily lifted an eyebrow. "I know it's uncomfortable, but if you think I'm going to stop meeting with our friends just because Sirius's little brother is there, you are going to need to realign your expectations." She shifted towards him, reaching out to lightly cup his cheek with a pat and a peck before going back to pulling out supplies. She probably had some method to the oncoming organization, but it was hard to tell at this point.

"Why am I the person with sense here?" James exclaimed, tossing his hands in the air. "I don't like being the only person with sense. It means something has bewitched all the truly sensible people, and I'm what's left."

"You being sensible is a sign of the apocalypse," Remus said.

"Exactly, so stop forcing me to be." James gave a full on pout. "Wasn't that in your vows somewhere, Lil? Love, honour, and be the sensible one so the house doesn't explode?"

"What are you expecting him to do, surrounded by Order members in a public place, regardless of whether he knows we are Order?" She seemed to abandon the supplies for a moment to turn more fully towards him, leaning back against the counter. "Emme was saying he kept looking at the door like he expected someone to barge in and throw him in Pureblood Prison for even sitting at the same table as Benjy and Dorcas. We'll take precautions, in case he tries to lay a trap, but he may not even want to admit he went. Either way, I'm not going to let it dictate whether or not I go."

"Why would you want to?" James asked.

"The same reason I always want to go. To decode for the Order and solve puzzles with our friends," Lily said firmly, holding a stubborn gaze. "I don't like the idea of letting him think he has the power to make muggleborns stay home just by showing up."

"Besides, it's Dorcas Meadowes running it," Remus said, agreeing with Lily like the traitorous traitor he was. "She won't stand for any funny business."

"He has no sense of humour and tortures people," James said, bluntly. "It's bad enough Sirius has no perspective, but even the prefects are fooled."

"We aren't being 'fooled,'" Lily said in that corrective tone she got sometimes, crossing her arms now. "'Fooled' would be assuming there is no chance he has ulterior motives. I'm not assuming that - and I don't think Remus is either - but I also don't think staying home is the answer. If he wants to mix with muggleborns without Slughorn forcing him to, I say let him. Give him a chance to be decent."

James hated the finality of the tone, but he knew by now not to argue with it if he expected to come out on top. Just because baby Black was dipping his toe in the idea of being a half-decent person didn't mean everyone he knew had to be on board with it. Sometimes, Peter was the only one with half a brain to reality.

"Take the cloak," James said, huffily. "And you have your portkeys, don't you?"

To that, Lily nodded. "Of course. We go in prepared while hoping we don't need to be."

"I think we're in more danger from whatever Dorcas has cooked up than whatever Regulus has in mind in front of a member of the courts," Remus said, bluntly.

"Great," James said, looking out the window to find that the car had gone as anticipated. "I can look forward to saying 'I told you so' when it's a disaster."

Lily exchanged a look with Remus, shook her head, and moved to the other side of the counter again to continue with the potions bag. "Maybe you can help with unpacking. That is a problem you have control over."

"Potions is forever your domain," James said, making a flourish with his hand. "I'm just here to wash up and cut up."

"Are the two of you done for the day?" she asked, tipping her head toward the bags.

"Making mischief is never done," James said, hand solemn to his chest.

"But we are," Remus replied, without missing a beat. "I'll leave you two to fight it out. I have to go have the same fight with Sirius."

"Fine, go be mischievous without me," James said. It would never fail to depress him to watch their lives separate. What if they become those people who only sent Christmas cards? "I'm sure we'll figure out a way to enjoy the afternoon."

"What a sacrifice," Lily quipped, shaking her head with a smile. "Good luck, Remus."

"Thanks," Remus said. "Good luck to you too."

"Now we sit and wait, sacrificing whatever people do in the afternoons. Luckily, we're very noble that way." James nodded, safely. Sometimes people had to sacrifice their afternoons, time with their friends, and risk the dreaded 'I told you so' being on the other foot to help save the world, but truthfully, they'd had nothing specific scheduled. "Wait, what _do_ young and beautiful people such as ourselves do in an afternoon once vigilantism is over?"

"See a film? Stroll in a park? I guess we are about to find out," Lily said, "even if vigilantism doesn't always have a stopping point."

"We have a stopping point," James said, more firmly than he felt. There did always seem to be something, didn't there? But there would come a time they'd want to take a back seat, have a few kids, maybe travel. Do the things you do when there's not a looming war. "We just have to deal with the nutter with the lackeys - and the lackeys, too."

"In the meantime, we can take the normalcy as it comes," she said with a smile.

"Let's get one thing straight," James said, the tone rife with obvious amusement. "We are not, nor have we ever, experienced anything close to normal."

"We are perfectly abnormal, thank you very much?" Lily said, shaking her head.

James gave her a confirming nod. Ordinary people had very uninteresting lives, and eccentric often went hand and hand with interesting. Look at Dumbledore. "So let's unload our abnormal supplies, get our abnormal coats, and go out for a very abnormal afternoon."

Meeting his eyes, Lily's smile grew. "Sounds like a great start to me."


	7. These Games We Play

**Chapter 7: The Games We Play**

* * *

One day had passed since Narcissa's party, yet Regulus's mother had yet to initiate a request for his list of marriage interests. Upon weighing the situation, proactivity seemed to benefit his situation most. What he might consider to be 'thoughtful consideration' was more likely to be interpreted as 'dragging his feet' than anything else, and the last thing he wanted was for anyone in his family to change their minds and pick a girl for him based on their own personal preferences and criteria. Given those preferences, he suspected that result would not be ideal.

His mother was flipping through a book when he found her, and suddenly, he felt like an intruder, even though she had requested the list. Politely, he knocked on the open door, waiting for her attention to flick over before he spoke.

"I am meeting with Bellatrix… However, before I leave, I wanted to let you know I have narrowed down some potential marriage options, if now is a good time..."

His mother extended her hand without looking up, "Show me."

Regulus approached without further word, then handed her the slip of parchment. First on the list was Abigail Fawley, circled as an indicated preference. She was followed by Seraphina Travers and Matilda Bulstrode for show, though he was prepared to relay why they were not an ideal fit, should his mother asked about their positioning. With some measure of tension, Regulus pressed his lips to a line and waited...

With a pursed look of her own, his mother looked over the list without saying anything for a moment, then two, then three. "A case of picking your poison: Matilda Bulstrode has loose morals, the Fawleys rarely have boys, and Seraphina Travers seems to have ill-advised feelings. Choose what you want to put up with."

Fighting the wash of relief, Regulus nodded, keeping his expression neutral. "Of the three, I have determined a preference for Abigail Fawley." He almost pointed out that Abigail had a little brother in addition to her sisters, but it would probably come across as argumentative, and he did not want to spoil the interaction. "After reflecting on my options, she seems the most fitting."

"Another blonde. Your grandfather will be most displeased, but at least it will be over and done with quickly." Walburga moved forward to hand him back the list. "I will speak to her parents. You should ask her to a social occasion or two before school starts. If she's someone you can live with, we can move forward and put the disaster of your generation behind us."

Regulus had not realised that 'blonde' was another undesirable trait, but privately, he suspected it was partially a break in the aesthetic and partially because his Aunt Druella was blonde, and his mother did not like Aunt Druella very much at all.

To his mother, Regulus simply nodded, folded the parchment, and slipped it in his pocket. "That is my hope. I must go on to meet Bellatrix, but I will follow up when I return."

His mother waved him off as if he'd never interrupted in the first place, so Regulus took his dismissal for what it was and slipped promptly out of the room.

* * *

Backlit by a window, Bellatrix struck an imperious image, standing tall with hands clasped behind her back. The difference in height between Regulus and his eldest cousin was slight, these days, but perhaps it was her commanding presence that made her height more imposing. No one had seemed to care very much whether or not he was 'commanding' before Sirius left, but everyone seemed to care very much about a lot of things, now that Regulus was the last.

Trying to clear his mind in preparation for an interaction with Bellatrix, Regulus approached with what he hoped was a calm, collected stride.

They were meeting in the library of the Lestrange's summer home today—no new spells, if he were to guess—but he did not feel quite comfortable enough to thumb through any books as they waited several stretching minutes for Barty to arrive. He exchanged a small smile with his friend as they stood at attention, but Bellatrix did not waste a moment longer before cutting into the silence.

"You are officially graduates now," she began, crisply. "No longer are you bound by the walls of the school, nor by the ignorance inherent in a child's lack of exposure. Your Unforgivables are satisfactory, your arsenal of dark magic has grown, and I have noticed a certain initiative in both of you that leads me to believe you are ready to take responsibility for your own progression." She met Regulus's eyes, then, and with everything inside of him, he fought off the prickle of relief. Less oversight had to be good, at least in some respect... "This will be the last of our regular trainings. With the freedom of adulthood, you can at last participate fully in the glorious opportunities we have to serve the Dark Lord."

Regulus flicked his eyes over to Barty to see an unbridled delight that made Regulus's heart sink. More than he could bear, he wanted to pull Barty out of the fire and make him see how pointless it all was—but instead, Regulus carved a smile on his face, and steeling himself, forced that smile into his eyes with a subtle shift in focus. (The eyes were what mattered—she would read his eyes, not his mouth.)

"The honour is unparalleled," Regulus said, evenly, again fighting to keep his mind calm and subdued. He did not dare indulge a sarcastic thought, though he could feel that temptation prodding at the edges of his mind. Emptiness was not particularly appropriate to the situation either, but dwelling on the opportunity to act as a fully devoted Death Eaters would not evoke the emotions she would wish to sense, so better to be flattened than upset.

"Your time has come. Prove your worth, and great things will open before you," Bellatrix continued, and he saw that same fire in her eyes. "Your first task will be to test the outer limits of the Gringotts enchantment."

"Is there something inside that we need?" Regulus asked, with a genuine note of curiosity, but Bellatrix simply lifted her chin with a hooded expression.

In clipped tones, she responded, "You should not concern yourself with the 'why,' but rather the 'how.'"

The response might have stung, were it not for the niggling curiosity squirming into his thoughts. Regulus did not expect to be privy to every line of reasoning, and he had been met with similar walls of secrecy from the start, yet he already knew one secret the Dark Lord had shrouded from him… Regulus would not dare let that secret fill his thoughts, but a more genuine expression of satisfaction was now pulling him into focus, and on his cousin's face, he could see the shadow of approval start to settle in turn.

"How to approach this is up to the two of you. We do not wish to draw unnecessary attention to our line of interest, so I trust you can be discreet." Her eyes leveled with Regulus first, then Barty, then Regulus again. "Amycus Carrow has been attempting to investigate from within, but his incompetence is so great that he cannot manage it, even when he is already _in_ Gringotts. Do not disappoint me."

The two boys nodded, and already, Regulus's thoughts began to billow with ideas to pursue—tunneling downward (and down and down and down), spells to mask one's existence, disguises, highly destructive potions—the latter of which he already needed…

"We won't."

* * *

Barty had remained in Iago after their meeting with Bellatrix, brushing the afternoon with a certain comfort and familiarity. Were Regulus to push away the convictions clawing at his insides, that plaguing, visceral need to escape started to feel almost like an overreaction—like it was not so terrible, buried in books with Barty, planning out a bit of routine property destruction. His head knew better, and so did the heat of his still-bubbling anger, but something else inside of him felt more secure—or at least more normal—than he had in weeks. The feeling was a frightening one, like some siren call, beckoning towards the rocks. Every swerve off course yanked aggressively at his chest, yet with each shift forward, he felt the pull of the riptide.

Home was not safe, but it was still home.

For several hours, they buried themselves in texts, huddling shoulder to shoulder over parchment with the vaguest, most obscure note-taking they could muster. (' _People may crack a code or break an obscuring enchantment, but having to do both is another level of annoying,'_ Barty had said with a smirk, which Regulus had to agree was absolutely true.)

In the end, their time at the Lestrange Manor was cut short by social demands: another Saturday evening with its telltale gathering, hosted this time by the Rosiers. Glued to each other's sides, Regulus and Barty found a corner to continue scribbling away at their parchment, and if anyone was bothered by the lack of mingling, they said nothing about it. The scene was, perhaps, too familiar to assume the two boys were up to anything nefarious, or perhaps the room was simply too preoccupied with itself to take notice.

They were muttering about what time they would like to meet up (for their completely legal joint activity) when Regulus caught sight of Abigail, this time standing with Jane Abbott near the table with the little finger sandwiches. Perhaps it was coincidence—or perhaps she sensed eyes on her—but she looked over with a mildly startled expression, paused, then waved.

The acknowledgement did not feel comfortable, but it did not feel uncomfortable either. Strange though it was for his life to be hurtling forward quite so rapidly toward marriage, Regulus reminded himself that he would need to get married eventually, anyway. The timing was not really so important, beyond the requirement of still being alive—such a thought was not particularly comforting. Politely, he lifted his hand slightly in some approximation of a wave.

"Who are you waving at?" Barty asked, following Regulus's eyeline, but Abigail wasn't looking anymore. Of course, now Abbott had twisted around for a quick peek with no subtlety to speak of, and that was sufficient motivation for Regulus to find some balance between sitting up uncomfortably straight and also paying a great deal more attention to their parchment again.

That was, of course, the moment when Regulus remembered he had not yet told Barty about his mother's task.

"Did you notice Abbott just looked very blatantly in our direction?"

Regulus considered feigning ignorance for all of five awkwardly long seconds before deciding against the benefits of lying. Such benefits were short-sighted at best. "Moving forward with the courting process seemed prudent."

"You're planning to marry _Abbott_?" Barty's tone was incredulous.

Regulus shook his head, and Barty's face relaxed slightly. "Fawley, most likely," he corrected.

The relaxation on his friend's face did not last. "Why?"

'Because my mother instructed me to marry someone, and I did not wish for that person to be connected to the Death Eaters' did not seem an appropriate answer, though the sharpness in Barty's eyes made Regulus think there might not be a particularly appropriate answer. Their commiserations about marriage had not anticipated such an immediate onset—or perhaps Barty sensed that he had not been privy in a timely manner.

"War is hard to predict, and it is better to be ahead of it."

Barty caught the implication immediately. "You aren't going to die." The conviction was comforting, considering everyone else—Regulus himself included—seemed to think it was an inevitability. In a lower tone, Barty added, "We're going to win. You haven't lost faith, have you?"

Regulus could feel his insides crush like a blasting curse to the chest, but even as his head screamed that the whole war was a farce, his head shook, of its own accord.

Though Barty let the subject drop, Regulus still sensed an unsettling wall shoot up between them; he still felt his friend shift subtly away to keep writing, still saw it behind his eyes when Barty ducked out of the party unusually early.

The plaguing uncertainty was perhaps worse than if Barty had specified what was bothering him, but Regulus had no shortage of theories. Folding up his half of their planning, he cast a charm to obscure the coded letters and stuck it in his pocket.

A glance at his pocket watch indicated that Gideon's puzzle club would be meeting within the hour—at Hogsmeade, this time. Going to another one of those gatherings seemed like an absolutely unsafe idea, if the indication of Sirius's friends attending had been accurate, but his curiosity was paying no mind to what could probably be considered 'better judgement.'

He was thirty minutes shy of the puzzle night's anticipated start when he saw Abigail again, this time tucked away at a table with her sketchbook, just as she had been at the previous party. Though his mood had soured somewhat from Barty's departure, he pushed that feeling away in light of the recognition that he had a limited amount of time to make certain she was a tolerable life partner before she went back to school—at the rate everything was snowballing, his mother's winter timeline would arrive all too soon.

When he approached her table, she looked up, but Regulus spoke first. "I will be leaving shortly, but I trust my mother has been in touch?" he said with a play at confidence.

"I understood the gist of it," Abigail replied, awkwardly. "Do you really want to go out with me? Because you know, I'm not a great conversationalist... We could end up sitting in silence the whole time."

"I'm certain," he replied. The words sounded very definitive, despite his limited information and the relatively loose criteria at hand. Well aware that any 'certainty' he presently felt was best described as a matter of perspective, he nonetheless punctuated his statement with a slight nod, if only to steel himself through the awkwardness. "If I was motivated for a constant stream of conversation, my decision would have probably been different."

"Okay, but don't blame me if you get bored," Abigail warned.

"It's rare that I find quiet to be boring," Regulus admitted. "If anything, it is more relaxing than trying to fill the air with words for the sake of doing so."

"This must be your idea of hell," Abigail replied. "That's all anyone does at the parties here."

"I… do not care for mingling," he began, "but I don't mind meaningful conversations, or conversations with people I would have had conversations with, regardless."

"Is that just being polite, and you'd rather have a fuss?" Abigail asked. "Just trying to suss out what your idea of 'fun social' is."

"A fair distinction," Regulus admitted. "Politeness plays a vital role, in most cases. There is nothing about the party setting that improves upon my desired conversations, save for some convenience. Based on your placement in these last two parties, is it safe to assume you feel similarly?"

"If you get involved, people start to notice you more, and once they do, bam, they judge all your behaviour and notice your mistakes way more." Abigail shifted uncomfortably. "When I want to do something, I like to keep trying, but that gets a lot harder if people watch every time you don't get it right, and people can be really catty."

Regulus felt as though eyes were constantly on him, regardless of how involved he was—after all, being involved was, in itself, something to judge. Even so, he could admit that the tension had become notably worse when Sirius had left, leaving all eyes to fall on Regulus alone. That thought was a sour one, despite the tenuous attempts at civility that defined his time at Andromeda's.

Sour yet accurate, perhaps, but even to a neutral party, Regulus did not think it was wise to detail that particular conclusion.

"It does get harder," Regulus said with a little nod.

"Was your mum okay with...the whole decision?" Abigail strained, almost as if she were checking that his mother wasn't around. "I'm sure she's very nice when you get to know her, but… is there is a nice way to put 'a bit terrifying'?"

Regulus loved his mother very much, but he did not think 'very nice' was an appropriate descriptor, regardless of one's degree of familiarity. However, Abigail appeared fairly nervous about that point, so he strove to keep the thought off of his face, instead focusing on a question that had a more reassuring response.

"She would not have reached out to your parents if she was not okay with the decision," Regulus answered. His mother might have criticized the ratio of daughters to sons, but it could not have been too much of a sticking point if she had not outright rejected the prospect. "She considers such things very thoroughly."

"My mum's okay with it. She used words like 'right sort,' so that means she's happy," Abigail went on. "Truthfully, I think she's upset I haven't really gone out with guys much but other people have—like Jane because she's good at Quidditch, or Tilly because she has very large breasts. I'm not very good at figuring out what people want unless I ask, and asking seems to make people uncomfortable. Am I making you uncomfortable? I'm talking a lot."

Regulus thought that drawing attention to Bulstrode's anatomy—however objectively accurate the observation might be—was more awkward than the talking itself was, but that awkwardness would only become worse if he were to clarify as much.

"I did not mean to suggest that talking is bothersome," he said, shaking his head. "It can be enlightening, actually.."

"You can sit with me," Abigail offered, "If you wanted."

"I should be going on," Regulus said, thinking again of the gathering in Hogsmeade, ticking closer by the minute, "but perhaps we could set aside time next week, if you are free?"

"Okay," Abigail agreed. "Just let me know."

"Is there a particular activity you would be interested in?" he asked—and more definitively, he added, "With the exception of the beach. I am not interested in the beach this summer."

"I don't know." Abigail said, with a frown. "Where do people go for stuff like this?"

Truthfully, Regulus was not so certain either—the question of courting activities had never come up—but neither was he keen on admitting as much, so he ran through possibilities.

"I imagine it varies," he began, simply because he had never heard of a strict progression—which meant it could not be _that_ established. "A meal, perhaps, or a stroll. Activities of interest—there is an art gallery here in Iago." Even as the suggestion left his lips, he felt a pang. Regulus had gone with his brother several summers ago—just before Sirius had run off—and no matter how civil their most recent interaction might have been, it did little to soothe the bitter sting.

'Have a nice life,' Sirius had said at Andromeda's. Deal with the repercussions—a running theme. Firmly, he tried to push away the thought as Abigail spoke again:

"The one with the mirror that is supposed to be art?" she asked. "I'd probably spend the whole time ranting about it, and maybe that's not your idea of a fun time."

He lifted a shrug. "I have no loyalty to the art there. If you enjoy ranting about it, I am not bothered by artistic criticism. My exposure was limited, but the modern definition of 'art' does strike me as rather strange."

Abigail nodded. "But if we can get ice cream beforehand, I'm all yours for a visit if you keep in my mind I don't handle criticism of what I make well."

"We won't be criticising _your_ artwork, of course," he said, lifting an eyebrow, "only the ones who think mirrors are legitimate to display in a gallery. I am not attached to any activity in particular, if you would rather do something else. With that being said, ice cream is a fine start, regardless."

"Start with ice cream then see if we want to quietly mock artistic vision?" Abigail asked.

"I can agree to that," he said with a nod. He had birthday plans the next day and a Gringotts mission to both plan and carry out, but there ought to be time to spare...

"You know where to find me," Abigail replied, but she stopped and frowned almost immediately. "Do you? I never know if that's just a thing people know or not, where everyone stays."

Regulus nodded. "With how few families there are, it is not difficult to keep track. I will be in touch with more specific details."

"It does get quieter every year," Abigail agreed. "But okay, I look forward to it."

Regulus nodded, and without ceremony, took his leave. Slipping outside into the warm evening air, Regulus started making his way outside the bounds of the manor's protective wards, hoping vaguely that no one would take particular notice of his absence. For anyone close enough to him to be affected in any way, the upcoming Gringotts mission was probably a sufficient excuse, but with luck, they would be too preoccupied to ask.

It was coming up on eight o'clock in the evening, but the summer sun had yet to set, casting an orange glow over the village and the jutting hills. Clearing the Rosiers' property, he disapperated with a pop.

* * *

When Regulus arrived in Hogsmeade for their puzzle night, a small crowd had formed at the station. Though Barty had not attended with him, he felt the question of faith hanging over him for awkward moment as he approached. Though it would be inaccurate to say that Regulus had forgotten about Remus Lupin and Lily Evans attending that evening, expectation had made it no more comfortable, and he tried not to pay too much attention as the two of them settled in to chat with Emmeline Vance. Evans did not bother him terribly, if he was completely honest. Despite overlap in the Slug Club and as prefects, they had quite dutifully avoided interaction for years. After all, Slughorn had adored the girl despite her muggleborn status, and putting himself at odds with his head of house did not seem worth the animosity… and as far as his brother's friends went, Lupin was certainly the least offensive, if Regulus was to speak relatively.

With that being said, the 'neutrality' of his company had taken a dive towards the 'wrong sort,' destroying some of his ability to feign ignorance, but at least his mother did not seem to care too much about where he went, so long as he kept coming back home… and if Barty had wished to go home early, then it was not as though Regulus had left him to the dullness of the party... Firmly, Regulus tried to shake off the guilt—or rather, refocus on how refreshing a night of riddles could be.

Dorcas Meadowes took charge this time, once again looking exceptionally professional and well put-together, despite the playful nature of their puzzle night. There had been little in the way of cutthroat competition last time, and he had to admit curiosity about what a Wizengamot member had prepared for them. Regulus had hovered near Gideon again, but when the explanations started, he turned his attention at once.

"Tonight's objective is simple: you'll break into groups of two, be given a series of clues, and have a 'treasure' to bring back. First set back wins." Dorcas waved her wand, as the station platforms began to move around. "I'll be waiting here when you're done."

"If you're going to make us brew potions again, I call Lily!" Emmeline called out.

"To make it fair, we're going this method." Dorcas told her, placing a literal hat on the now table-clothed table. "Pick a name, and it'll turn to your clue when the last name is picked."

"Oh, fine," Emmeline said. With a wave of her wand, a piece of parchment swept up into her hands and her face fell. "Oh, fine. Benjy, if you get me burnt, mauled, or losing my hair in some way, I'm going to hex you."

"Yay for partners," Benjy Fenwick said, moving to join her.

Parchment flew across as people retrieved names, and began to configure themselves into their team order.

"You rigged this," said Lupin.

"I did no such thing," Dorcas replied. "It's all luck."

"Luck and I have a strained relationship," Lupin replied, taking a few steps up towards Regulus himself. "Sorry, I think any plans in the vicinity of ignoring one another have just taken a significant blow."

Of course it would be Lupin. Regulus had no idea how he was meant to react, so he fought any sort of reaction at all, holding his face in place as he nodded. "I expect so."

Peering at the slip of parchment, he saw that the first clue was already forming: _I cannot be found where it is too dry. I am a knot you do not tie._

"Shall we?" Regulus said, gesturing away from the group.

Lupin gave a quick nod. "It could be the flowers, but if this is supposed to lead to actively doing something, I really hope it's not. The only potions I can think of involve the stopping of bleeding."

"Hopefully, that won't be necessary." Thoughtfully, Regulus slanted his mouth, throwing himself into the clue with the hope that it would distract from the awkwardness. "If it is not associated with dryness, it may not be found in a building… Unless, of course, Hogsmeade has grown a bit damp since last I was here. It could also be referencing the verbal sense of 'dry' and 'knot,' though I expect that is too abstract to allow for a physical treasure to retrieve." He glanced around at the expanse of nature, stretching out beyond the edge of the small wizarding village. "Within the village, it could perhaps be referring to beverages, which could be found in The Three Broomsticks, but if these these clues are not restricted to the village, the options to broaden quite a bit."

"Or some new sweet at Honeydukes," Lupin pondered aloud. "But that, again, is obscure. I doubt it's limited to the village—that would make it easy, and Dorcas never does that."

Nodding slightly, Regulus's eyes scanned along the grass, up to the trees making up the edge of the Forbidden Forest, then a thought occurred: "What if it's knotgrass? Knotgrass grows where things are dim and slightly damp, which fits the clue and our surroundings, alike."

"There are patches in the forest," Lupin pondered aloud. "It also has a fair amount of uses."

"That seems like a good starting place, then," Regulus said, and without further delay, they each apparated to the edge of the forest, met now with a very imposing line of trees, each casting shadows in the early evening.

As they stepped inside, the canopies darkened their path, but the trees were still thin enough on the edges to allow the last specks of evening light to trickle in from above. Drawing his wand for additional light, Regulus began scanning the immediate area for patches of knotgrass, seeing out of the corner of his eye that Remus was doing the same.

"Have you, er, ever explored the forest before?" Lupin muttered, without stopping his search.

"When circumventing the rules, I preferred the Restricted Section, but I have, a little bit," Regulus answered, waving the light of his wand over a clump of mushrooms climbing up the side of a large tree. The forest had not been Regulus's idea of a great time, so much as a proposed activity from his peers, but they had not been eaten by werewolves or stomped by centaurs, so over all, it had been more an exercise in curiosity than imminent danger… "Have you? The knotgrass could have been a deduction, but you sounded confident."

"A little." Lupin admitted. "On both counts. I know there's some here. It's useful for mimicry. My transfiguration isn't what I wish it was, so having something that can take another form without it is useful."

"I have not used it outside the bounds of school assignments, but I can imagine it would be." On the subject of mimicry, knotgrass was an ingredient in polyjuice potion, as Regulus recalled, but it seemed prudent to not appear too interested in that fact. Lupin was friends with Sirius and Potter, and the chances of both of them keeping their mouths shut about his illegal extracurricular activities were extraordinarily small—meaning Lupin likely knew. Based on the demeanor of the others in the group, he suspected they did not, but that possibility felt far more precarious than he liked…

Using the grass to mimic items was a reasonable idea, however; he felt confident in the transfiguration and charmwork he had put into the locket's disguise, but it was a thought worth tucking away…

"I think it's why they let the rumours continue—though admittedly some of the rumours are true. There are centaurs and a few of Hagrid's pets, but no vampires, werewolves—present company excluded—or chimera in the forest." There was an uncomfortable beat of silence. "There should be a note somewhere near the right patch. Dorcas is a little more creative than most at these things."

Regulus nodded. Thus far, runes and riddle-led treasure hunts were off to an interesting start, if very different in nature. Crouching beside a nearby patch of knotgrass, he used his lit wand to nudge the blades around in search of a note. While :Lupin was searching another, he harvested a small amount in case it might be useful in his experiments with the Horcrux, but it was not until he began checking the next patch that he asked, "Will she want any of the knotgrass, or only the answer to the final clue?"

"It won't hurt to collect some," Lupin said, taking a few uncertain steps away. "If she's hidden the last one well, it may be required to get it."

Glancing between the knotgrass and Lupin, Regulus wondered again if the awkwardness he sensed was due to some knowledge of Regulus being a Death Eater or if Lupin was just always like this… Pointing this out would be rude, of course, so Regulus kept the question to himself, gathering more knotgrass for his other pocket.

"I think I have..." Lupin reached down among the grass, to show a parchment tied with ribbon. "'In prison is this herb should be, put your best foot forward if you want to find me.' I suppose we got the easy one out of the way."

Regulus pressed his lips to a thoughtful line. "My initial thought is that the first part could be referencing the degree of danger, or perhaps something that could trap a person, such as the Devil's Snare… The latter could reference the location of the plant, such as it being at foot level rather than associated with trees, or perhaps some naming reference to the feet themselves…"

Lupin nodded, silent for a beat. "Unless it's a terrible pun. We are near a place with 'foot' in the title."

Standing up, Regulus ran the surrounding area through his mind—no landmarks, natural or otherwise, immediately came to mind—and it took a mental run through several of the Hogsmeade establishments to remember, if only due to the complete lack of interaction with it: "Do you mean Madam Puddifoot's?"

"I do." Lupin made a shrugging motion. "It's likely shut up for the night, but there's always summoning if it's something to guess once we're there."

"It seems like a good place to start," Regulus granted with a nod. The prospect of taking something from a closed shop seemed a little incongruous with a woman of the law, but he supposed there was room for surprises in most people. A bit of petty theft was probably not the worst thing this summer would bring—nor was it technically the first theft of his summer, however dry the thought.

Within seconds, they had both apparated back to the village, making quick time to the tea shop… and it was just as nauseatingly pink as he recalled. He had never been inside before, nor had he even made a point to spare much thought to it, but it did have the word 'foot' in it, which was a good catch, he had to admit. Chances were that Meadowes would not put all of her clues in the same immediate area.

"Either she is passing commentary on romantic relationships as a prison, or perhaps it is related to a particular snack, tea name, or ingredient." Regulus strained his gaze, slightly. "I can't see the menu very well from here… Have you ever been inside?"

"Not enough to know the menu," Remus replied, as if the very idea was a little preposterous. "But there's a window open at the back, just a smidge. I think I can guide a menu out of it if you can be on the other side to retrieve it."

Regulus offered a nod, and within a few minutes, they had maneuvered a menu out and confirmed, quite definitively, that there were no items on the menu that referenced incarceration at all. Truthfully, Regulus thought it was a missed opportunity, but judging by the explosion of frills, the chances were high that he and Madam Puddifoot did not share the same sense of humour.

"Ingredients, it is, then."

Lupin began moving his lips, listing ingredients off under his breath. "Chamomile, ginger, mint, sage, mugwort, hellebore. I feel as if I'm being punished for not taking Herbology at NEWT."

Regulus had proceeded with the subject in line with Potions, and there was probably no excuse for failing to think of the solution already, in light of that. Perhaps he should have focused on more fluency on the details…

Nonetheless, Regulus began turning the first part of the riddle over in his mind again, quietly running through anything thematically related. "Prison, gaol, crime, criminal…" Uncomfortably, Regulus hoped 'Death Eater' was not at all related to the word play. "Azkaban, conviction…" That felt worse, and he was running out of immediate associations… Pressing his lips to a line, he concentrated on the window for no other reason than it was something to look at, tugging at mental strings until-

"Mugwort."

"Bless you," Lupin replied.

Regulus shot a dry look but did not miss a beat in adding: "Mugwort, used in Madam Puddifoot's tea, is also called the 'felon herb'—prison, felon. I suppose we are collecting it through the window, as well."

"I'd forgotten that," Lupin replied, but was already peering in to see if he could see some of it. "Yes, I think I see something stuck to it!"

"Would you like to do the honours, or shall I?"

"I'll maneuver. You may read," Lupin said, face already taught with concentration. It took a little bit of finangling to get it up to the window, with some of the ingredient getting sprawled onto the floor beneath the window, but there was an audible sound of relief when it finally dropped. "I swear Dorcas makes us break more laws than anyone else. What does it say?"

Perhaps Meadowes enjoyed a spot of irony, or perhaps a larger percentage of the Wizengamot was unbothered by laws than Regulus had previously assumed. More than one Death Eater sat on it, so he could not really say much, in that respect.

Taking the parchment, he read aloud: "Find now a bottle to add to these things, inside it a silver which royally sings."

"What would sing inside a bottle? A note, perhaps, like a musical note, but..." Lupin trailed off.

Regulus shook his head, expression pulled to a thoughtful point. "And with the importance of word choice, 'royally' seems to be notable. Powdered butterfly wings may have a 'monarch' connection, but they are neither silver, nor do they sing, living or dead."

Lupin began to wonder allowed. "Then it must be royalty that si-" then he cut himself off, with a grin. "It's Mercury. That's what's silver in a bottle."

Regulus lifted an eyebrow, thinking that, even with an association with silver, neither the planet nor the metal sang, nor were they associated with royalty, yet Lupin seemed oddly confident about this deduction.

Lupin shook his head. "It's a muggle band, Queen. The lead singer is called Mercury. We, er, have some of the records."

A muggle band… Locking the clue behind muggle information seemed unfair—and more than a little bit questionable, from an acceptability standpoint. Practically speaking, music itself wasn't an ingredient, and that did seem to be the theme of their treasures… Regulus tipped an uncomfortable nod and responded, uncertainly, "I suppose we are looking for mercury, then."

"It's probably at Dervish and Banges," Lupin guessed. "They're likely to use it for equipment."

Gesturing forward, Regulus added, "Lead the way, then."

Once they had reached the shop, Lupin beckoned him around to the back. "It's probably in with bottles of ingredients. They'd use it for compasses—I suppose it's too much to hope for another window?"

Stealing mercury—quite the criminal record they were developing, though Regulus did not think it prudent to say as much. The direction of this activity did not particularly bother him, but he was a little surprised it did not bother Lupin. Among Sirius's friends, he seemed like the (comparatively) rule-abiding one, but he supposed such things were relative.

"I expect so," Regulus responded with a nod. "I don't see one, and I assume the door and interior are protected with alarms. However, there is a vent just below the lining of the roof. That could be useful."

"Shrinking charm?" Lupin suggested. "Or enlarge the vent holes."

"Either ought to work," Regulus agreed. "Between the two options, I would suggest we enlarge the vent holes, for the sake of accuracy. Attempting to shrink our target inside the building creates a higher risk of shrinking something else instead, which is both unhelpful and could potentially be suspicious, come the morning." Peering up at the vent, he added in a thoughtful tone, "Yet… on second thought, enlarging the vent could affect the stone around it. Perhaps something to soften the metal, making it malleable enough to give way to the bottle?"

"Or transfigure the surrounding stones, but that's a lot of trouble," Lupin replied. "Strengthening of some kind? Unless she's just put some in the vent to prevent actual theft."

"That is… certainly worth checking first," Regulus said with a nod.

"Hiding in plain sight would be one way to do it," Lupin replied. He reached up to put his hands on the vent, giving it a good finagle before it came off in his hand. "I'm not sure it was meant to do that…."

"Probably not. Can you feel anything inside?"

With a a distressed noise, Lupin pulled his hand back to find it covered in an unidentified brownish liquid. "It's sticky," he said, in obvious horror.

"That's… ah…" Making a face, Regulus cringed away from it, slightly. "Unfortunate. I suppose she did not hide it in there… Do you need a cleaning spell?"

"No, I can do it." Lupin made a look of disgust, but cast the spell. "I got covered in mud last time we had one of Dorcas's too—she put one up a tree, and I slid down. Any heights will be on you. You were the seeker."

"I don't mind them, no." Regulus nodded. "But I do not care for mud."

"I'm not a fan either," Lupin said, already trying to open cabinets from a deep peer in the window. "If I retrieve it, can you hold the hole spell in place until it's safely out?"

"I can," he confirmed, and the two set to maneuvering out a small glass bottle, half-filled with a sloshing silver liquid. When they had their prize safely in hand, he pulled off the attached parchment, unrolling it for both to see.

"'Mix us together then brush the gates. Where all children come to decide their fates.'" Lupin said. "There's only one place that can be."

"Finishing off with the obvious," Regulus said, mouth quirking up.

Within seconds, they were standing before the gates of Hogwarts, the ingredients gathered together. They had no cauldron, but there was space enough in the bottle that it seemed they could be mixed.

After mashing it together, Lupin used his wand to smear some of it on the gates. It took trying a few places, before he made a sudden noise of excitement. "There's something inside the metal," Lupin said. "It looks like some kind of key but stuck... _Revelio_!"hr

Regulus plucked it out, turning it in his fingers by the long stalk. The teeth at the end jutted out, as with any key Regulus had ever seen, and the grip of the key flared out in three empty loops, not unlike a clover. For something they had seemingly just forged, the key was rather rusted, but that may have been the knotgrass at work.

"So we take this back?"

"And we hope to not be last." Lupin punctuated his statement by apparating.

Regulus apparated behind him with the key clasped in hand—relieved to see that he had arrived at the correct area of Hogsmeade Station, circling back to where they had started. Lily Evans and Gideon were already standing by Meadowes, unlocking a small box with their key, so he and Lupin had not been first—but no one else appeared to have arrived yet, so they certainly were not the last, either.

For an awkward moment, Regulus was uncertain whether approaching Meadowes as a muggleborn, a Wizengamot member, or a near-stranger was tilting him more strongly towards uncertainty. After a moment of consideration, he decided that it felt easier not to think about it, so he gripped their key in hand and walked up, holding it out as Lupin walked up behind him.

"Second," Meadowes responded. "Not too terrible."

"You assume it wasn't on purpose so neither of us had to organise the next one," Lupin responded, looking towards the table and the boxes. "I take it the initials are ours."

"They are," she confirmed. "A little incentivising never hurt anyone, and prizes help."

Regulus approached the line of smooth, black boxes, labeled with initials, as Lupin had noted. On the side, he spotted a keyhole molded into the side, where the lid and container connected. Whether the keys were the same and worked on all of the boxes or whether Meadowes had customised the locks to match their pairs during the hunt was presently unclear. It may well have been a mix of both, given the (presumed) spontaneity of the pairs, but Regulus waved off the thought, supposing it wasn't appropriate to test for confirmation. Instead, he stopped by his and Lupin's designated box, sticking the key into the slot with an oddly rackety twist.

Inside, there were two small fairy cakes, no bigger than their palms: one light in colour with a brush of sugar, jam, and spongey cake 'wings,' while the other was brown, presumably chocolate in flavour, with a similar design. Given the traditional association with birthdays, he wondered if it had something to do with the fact that his own would strike at midnight, but he did not recall saying as much.

Lupin began to laugh. "You do know that rumour about me always having chocolate on me is only that," he said. "I only had it in school because people-" he looked at Lily Evans—"were prone to working themselves without a break, and chocolate is a good way to get people to stop."

"You don't like it?" Dorcas Meadowes asked.

"I'll never turn down cake," Lupin said, sincerely. "Thank you."

Dorcas shifted her gaze to Regulus himself. "I did consider putting a candle on it, but I've been informed you prefer to be understated."

The source of this informant was unclear, and Regulus wondered then if Sirius had been told about these puzzle nights, or whether Gideon might have gleaned something from Aunt Lucretia or Uncle Ignatius. Regardless of that source, her comment suggested it had been purposeful—a surprising prospect, considering they barely knew him, but a thoughtful one nonetheless. Regulus was not sure at first how to respond, but when he found his voice just a beat later, he grasped at politeness like some sort of stabilising anchor.

"I do." Gideon and Evans had glanced over from their own box, sparking a little twinge of embarrassment, even if there was nothing embarrassing about having a birthday. More accurately, he felt off of his footing, not certain how to act, but at least the audience was small. That, perhaps, was a reward in itself. Looking back to Meadowes, he added, "Thank you."

"Many happy returns," Gideon said. "I'll have to make the next one harder or you'll have to end up planning the one after that. I don't know if you're ready that yet!"

Flicking the corner of his mouth upward for just a fraction of a second, Regulus nodded. "I can manage—but participation alone has been interesting enough."

"But you'll still try to win, won't you?" Dorcas Meadowes. "Even if it meant taking it on."

"Obviously. It's unlikely to be very intellectually stimulating if you aren't putting effort into your pursuit," Regulus said, carefully taking the small cake out from the box. "Nor do I particularly care for losing, certainly not on purpose."

"That's not very surprising," Evans said, now holding her own treat—pink, most likely some manner of red or pink fruit flavouring. She was breaking their unspoken oath of dutiful ignoring, but attending these puzzle nights probably did complicate the nature of that understanding. Even now, Regulus could not pick apart how he felt about any of it, just recognised the wave of discomfort and tried to push it down as she continued: "Dorcas is the same."

"There's no dignity in losing, especially if it's on purpose. There's at least honour in losing if you've done everything you can possibly do." Dorcas laughed, warmly. She reached over for a glass of something gold, swirling it for a moment. "But you can hardly talk! Horace does like to talk about your drive as much as your cheek, and for once, it's not too much of an exaggeration. If you ever take an interest in politics, I may have to orchestrate a very nasty accident on your behalf."

"Fighting corruption with corruption, the Ministry way!" Evans said, waving her fairy cake emphatically. "I bet your colleagues would just love my politics."

"What makes you think they like mine?" Dorcas responded, evenly. "Everyone picks their arena to fight in. I enjoy the arguments, or I'd have gone mad. I'm good at it too; excellent people reader, said so on all my school reports, work evaluations, and self-administered evaluations."

"Didn't you write the self-administered ones?" Gideon asked.

"I'm very honest about myself," Dorcas replied. "I can read a room well. For example, you're wondering if we're going to see Fabian before dawn, and considering theirs involved burning, I imagine they've already gone to St. Mungo's when Dedalus inevitably managed to catch one of his hats—and therefore himself—on fire. Lily is wondering if the communication embargo was still between herself and Regulus and if she has just broken it, and if she did, does that count as winning or losing. Remus is having a, what do you call it, a furry panic, because he always does when newcomers come into the group and learn of his monthly involuntary pastime; and if I were to hazard a guess, Regulus is wondering how anyone knew it was his birthday. Am I wrong?"

Regulus flicked his eyes around, watching as everyone generally admitted to the accuracy with varying degrees of commentary. Her deduction had done little to actually _answer_ his question, but Regulus, too, shook his head.

"All right, then." Dorcas said, putting her glass down to clasp her hands. "We can all agree winning is much better than losing, especially if it involves cake. Let us rejoice in our respective victories, then wait and see if Dedalus has more sense than I'm giving him credit for and shows up before Sturgis and Caradoc do."

Following a chorus of agreement, everyone settled into their respective cakes, and Regulus was deeply relieved when the others started up conversations that did not require his direct participation. It felt surreal, standing in Hogsmeade Station, eating a birthday fairy cake, gathered with a group in which three out of the four people around him were problematic by rather objective Society standards. That ratio did not improve as the other teams trickled in, but even when his cake was gone, Regulus lingered a little longer, silently watching them chatter.

For observational purposes, of course.

* * *

Sirius flopped down at the table. "What's the plan for the peacocks?"

After waking Remus up, the two of them had made their way round to Lily and James's place (which was James's new place) in Dalston. They'd found Peter already there, though judging by the amount of fluffy feathers he had still gotten stuck in his hair and hood, he'd gone right from work. Remus was slouched down, _The Wards of a Warden: A Guide to Household Protective Spells, Charms and Potions_ open in front of him but Sirius'd bet more than a few Galleons that he wasn't reading it.

"What peacocks?" Peter asked.

"This is _Malfoy Manor_ ," Sirius said, his falsetto an excellent impression of Narcissa if he did say so himself. "It it's large, gauche, and looked like it cost a lot of gold, they have it running around the garden. Unless you want to revisit the Library idea?"

"Not after that scouting," Remus added, with a shake of his head. It had looked a little creepy, but most of the things related to the Lestranges were creepy.

"There's real peacocks?" Peter said. "I thought you were having us on."

"It's Luscious, I don't need to have you on," Sirius replied. "I don't need to exaggerate when it comes to the Malfoys since they practically make fun of themselves."

"And yet you offer your services, all the same," came Lily's voice from an adjoining room. She peeked her head in before disappearing again. "I did assume you were exaggerating, but at the same time, I'm not surprised they have living ornamentation."

"We could bake them," James offered, putting on a show of mulling over the idea as he wandered to the door frame from the other room. As usual, wanted to be in on the action. "What do peacocks taste like?"

Remus looked at him with alarm. "Why are you looking at me when you say that?"

"I thought you might have some idea!" James called back.

"Do you think we could not slaughter innocent birds?" Peter asked.

"But do we _know_ they're innocent?" James asked, leaning around the door. "They could easily be complicit."

"I think we'd have heard about it by now," Sirius reasoned. "Muggleborn mauled by a swan with a funky tail."

"We're going to get caught," Remus complained. He looked tired; what had they gotten up to last night?

"We never get caught," Sirius told him.

"Except for all the times we did," Peter interjected.

"That was on purpose," James said, sauntering back in. He reached over to pat Remus on the arm before plopping down on the couch. "We were trying to see who could get the most detentions in a term. I won, of course."

"I'm more worried about the magical defenses than the bird ones," Peter said. "What do they eat?"

"You're barking if you think I'm prancing about with bird seed while you lot break into the Malfoys'." Sirius glowered. He was not being left behind on their first big Order mission in months. No way. "Figure something else out."

"Peter has an important point about the magical defenses," Lily said. This time, she joined them fully, striding over to the couch and settling in next to James as she tucked her socked feet up under her. "Sirius, do you know if apparition is possible within the property or if it's blocked throughout? Something as simple as apparition could side-step our peacock problem entirely."

"But also ruin a lot of the fun," Sirius said, with mock despair. "But honestly, I dunno. I can check."

"Try not to get caught," Remus said.

"That's why we've got lawyers," Sirius replied, cheekily. Law had always been a flexible term for them. "Speaking of, how was swot night?"

"Fun and productive," Lily answered first, then waved a hand at Remus, "but if you're wondering about your brother, specifically, Remus would know better about that. I really only saw him at the end."

"Did he keel over and die at the sight of you, then?" Sirius asked, but even as he did, he could feel his heartbeat speed up at the idea. He had no idea what his brother was doing, but it seemed like no one else did either. He'd gone off the map.

Lily shook her head. "No keeling over, no snide comments—barely any comments at all, now that I think about it."

"Oh, petrification," Sirius nodded, knowingly. "I remember it well."

"No one petrified him," Remus said. "We got on with it and then had cake."

"You ate cake together?" Sirius asked. He tried to ignore the feeling in his gut, hot, unpleasant. "How charming, were there also tea and finger sandwiches?"

"More importantly, did he poison any of it?" James asked.

"He'd never poison that lot on large," Sirius said. "He hasn't got the balls to poison people at all."

"Poisoning a bunch of people isn't exactly brave," Lily answered stickily, but she continued without missing a beat, "But I guess it was his birthday? Dorcas put fairy cakes in the prize boxes at the end, this time. Gideon probably told her."

"How quaint," Sirius said. "Did everyone sing too?"

"Dorcas organised the whole thing. What do you think?" she countered.

"If anyone could make someone as tone deaf as you lot sing, it would be Meadowes," Sirius said, but he couldn't picture it. He couldn't picture any of it. It was too surreal. Regulus had gone back, but he still wanted to act as if he hadn't? He was going to get his bollocks put through a mincer at this rate. He tried to push the thought away, but the nausea sat on the back of his tongue regardless. "But can we get back to something important, like figuring out wards? If I get arrested breaking into Narcissa Malfoy's, I'll never live it down, and she'll milk it to the end of time."

"We wouldn't want to lose sight of our priorities," Lily quipped in a ribbing tone, looking at him with a weird look on her face, but the pause was brief. "The common protective enchantments should be easy enough. I can start compiling some others, too, because I doubt the Malfoys make it easy to break into their _manor_ ," she said, her voice going flippant for a second. "Maybe Alice and Frank can give some insight."

"They've probably been there," Sirius said. Back in the bad old days when everyone didn't seem all that bothered about neutrality, and it wasn't exactly public how extreme it all was. "Ask them. I'm going to hit the books and see what I can find."

"Nothing good ever comes of you reading books," James said.

"We're vigilantes," Sirius huffed. "We're not meant to be good. We're just meant to be effective."

"Let's aim for both," Lily said.

Sirius scowled at her. "Spoilsport."

"That's me, the fun-ruiner," she quipped back with very little remorse. "How are you two feeling about it—Remus, Peter?"

"What if someone asks them?" Peter questioned. "What if they have to lie?"

"They'll have to lie regardless," Remus said, lightly. "I'd rather have their input."

"I agree with Remus." Lily nodded. "No one's going to make anyone share information they don't want to share, but we're all in this together. It's important to help how we can… and I'm sure the Longbottoms would like to know what is tucked away in Malfoy Manor, anyway. What Auror wouldn't want to know what's beyond the doors that they can't legally walk through?"

"In other words, live up to your house and be brave about it," Sirius added. "Besides, if they come back, the place is huge. You can probably leave without ever even being noticed. You worry too much."

"So it's settled, we ask Alice and Frank." James shrugged.

"As long as we do it soon," Sirius said. No one knew when Narcissa would decide to pull a fainting spell to get away from the boredom—or her mother. Besides that, he was getting that itch that told him he wasn't doing anything, or enough, and sitting around waiting for plan by committee was bad enough as it was. "We have an opportunity. Let's not waste it."

* * *

Another birthday had come for Regulus, but eighteen did not feel much different than seventeen, in the end. Though his family had gathered, it was a rather subdued affair. There was nothing special about being eighteen. Adulthood had set in with his previous birthday, when his father had passed on the enchanted pocket watch that had been passed down from his father's own father—as was wizarding tradition. The thought had brought with it a certain melancholy, but he had lacked the emotional energy to raise the subject, instead letting in turn like acid in his chest.

His Aunt Druella had cornered him early in the evening with remarkably updated information, considering Regulus was absolutely certain his mother had said nothing to her about marriage intentions. (" _An... interesting choice—not who I would have expected! How grown up you are."_ ) Narcissa, likewise, had seemed strangely confused that he had not opted to marry 'the Travers girl.' However much he adored Narcissa in particular, the subject of romance had always made him deeply uncomfortable at the best of times, and her level of investment in his romantic future had surpassed his own, right from the start. Regulus had scarcely interacted with any of the girls in school, but whether it was an assumption on Cissa's part, a remark from Sera, or a remark from Sera's brother, Regulus dreaded the promise of everyone's oncoming commentary. His grandfather cutting in to question him further about his NEWTs—joined by his Aunt Lucretia—had been a mercy.

A day had passed, since then, and Regulus had found himself at the Lestrange Manor once again, thumbing through his eldest cousin's as he tried to piece together any sort of cohesive plan. Upon returning from an evening of riddling treasure hunts, Regulus had hidden his knotgrass along with the bubotuber pus harvested at Andromeda's house, but he was no closer to the destruction of the locket, objectively speaking. Bellatrix's assignment had been surprisingly curious in nature—less miserable than he would have anticipated—and if nothing else, it was a good cover for darker research. Spells to slip past or block powerful enchantments, as well as potions to eat through protected materials, each seemed a reasonable starting place, and on the bright side, if there might be some potion potent enough, perhaps he could siphon some of that for himself, as well. Severus had been open to assisting when it was merely for the purposes of intellectual stimulation, so Regulus had no doubt he would be obliging if there was an actual mission attached to the request. Already, he had garnered some ideas, but perhaps Severus could come up with some others.

Flicking his eyes towards the far corner, Regulus could see Rodolphus at work with a stable of neatly organised parchment stacks. He had moved through his mound of parchment and progressed to a book of his own before he finally caught sight of Regulus glancing over, lowering his own text with a raised brow.

"You have been hard at work," he noted.

"I'm researching for a new mission. Barty is handling the diversion, and I'm responsible for testing defenses."

"Gringotts?"

Regulus nodded.

"I look forward to seeing the end result," Rodolphus said, though his eyes had already lowered to his book again.

Regulus wanted to be heartened by the remark, but it was difficult to look at Rodolphus and not imagine the cold fury he would unleash if he were to find out what Regulus had done—and what he was planning to do. There had been a time when Regulus had thought the man might be a kindred spirit of sorts, but he shared with his wife an unnerving devotion and a certain comfort with the violence of their times. Some part of Regulus feared he would not be an exception to either of them, family or not.

Regulus did not bother to fake a smile as he nodded—Rodolphus did not care for smiles, even if he had been looking—and with a new book in hand, Regulus slipped around to the other side of the bookcase. He thought, then, about the book of dark magic he he snatched from their library some few months ago, the one that had spoken of the Horcruxes, and he wondered if he ought to sneak it back in at some point. Neither of them had seemed to notice it was missing—or if they had, neither had seen fit to mention it to him, despite his more frequent visits, as of late. There was more to glean from it, certainly, whether or not further references to Horcruxes could be found, but he did not much want to draw attention to the text if it was found to be missing.

Settling in one of the chairs by the nearest window, Regulus let out a sigh and open the next book onto his lap. What was one more problem to juggle?

* * *

' _Your potion is ready.'_ The note had arrived several days later, dropped off at his window without a signature, but Regulus recognised it to be Severus's handwriting. In the end, the potion had been chosen by Severus, rather than Regulus himself, but if it meant a more effective attempt, then he supposed he did not need to be more knowledgeable about potions than their designated potioneer.

Morning was giving way to early afternoon as Regulus weaved through Diagon Alley's crowded throng, but he was still several shops down from the apothecary when he spotted an increasingly familiar head of red hair—Fabian Prewett, the more Gryffindor of the Prewett twins, though Regulus had to admit he was not too unbearable for a Gryffindor. Regulus wondered for a moment if he ought to pause to say hello or pretend that he had not seen him, but when they made eye contact, the decision seemed to make itself, in a sense.

"Hullo," Fabian said, when recognition set in. "Trying not to get squashed?"

"Preferably," Regulus responded with a little nod. "The early afternoon rush seems to have settled in."

"And the mid-afternoon, and the evening." Fabian moved out of the way of a witch carrying a tower that had to be charmed not to fall. "Good to see it busy. I came down a few weeks after that protest. It was half empty."

There had been a 'muggleborn rights' protest, recently, if he recalled the disapproving Iago commentary correctly. "The war is very disruptive," he settled.

"Do you remember much before it?" Fabian asked. "You must've been what, eight?"

"I remember that age, but it did not feel very different at the time," Regulus admitted.

"Things got a bit tense around the family stuff," Fabian acknowledged. "I think everyone's gone into their respective corners these days, but we still get a bit of gossiping now and then."

Regulus nodded, wondering how much the Prewetts had bickered over their widening split. Neutral as they were, his Uncle Ignatius had married into Regulus's family, of course, with their unapologetically purist ideals, while Molly Prewett—Fabian's own sister—had married a Weasley. Somehow, they had preserved their neutral status, but the lines between traitor and not were uncomfortably fuzzy. "I was not involved in political discussions, at the time, but I can imagine so."

"If you were involved in political discussions at eight, I'd worry about you more," Fabian said as he ducked out of the way of someone with an owl. "You enjoying a bit of the challenge with the gang? I nearly had a fit when Meadowes showed up the first time."

Again, Regulus nodded. "The puzzles have been interesting."

"Seems like something Lucretia would have been into when she was a bit younger," Fabian suggested, "Though the idea of them as kids is crazy to me. Some of the pictures throw me off."

"It is strange to see," Regulus agreed. "I have not seen any of Uncle Ignatius, but there are several of Aunt Lucretia in our house."

"Remind me to bring you a couple of embarrassing ones from his Quidditch days," Fabian said. "It's more hair than I've ever seen on him."

"Perhaps that is why he prefers to tell rather than show, when it comes to Quidditch regaling," Regulus said, lightly. "Consider my curiosity piqued."

"He's a good laugh," Fabian said, once again moving. "Is there a sale I'm not aware of? What are you up to?"

"A brief trip to the apothecary," Regulus responded. "What about yourself?"

"The same," Fabian said, with amusement. "Someone managed to vanish half the bones in their opponent's bodies after a quick two-a-side Quidditch gone wrong. Scared the hell out of the locals, and we have gone through our entire store of Skelegro. Maybe it'll teach them to be discreet."

Very carefully, Regulus controlled a jolt of anxiety at the prospect of having any sort of company with him for the business portion of this trip, but he firmly reminded himself that he was not doing anything out of the ordinary. One was allowed to buy potions, and it was no other patron's business what potions those were.

"Discretion is a valuable lesson," Regulus said, shaking his head. "Let us carry on, then," he added, gesturing towards the apothecary as they began walking again.

For all the anxiety he had experienced at the thought of Fabian paying attention to what he was here to purchase, there was a separate but similar wash of concern at whether Severus would interpret the visit as intentionally coordinated versus coincidentally coordinated. Even if Severus were the tattling sort, there was nothing exceptionally offensive about Fabian Prewett, save for his utterly offensive house, but that was easy enough to ignore without blaring house colours flashing in every direction.

Severus was attending to the stocks when they walked in, and to his credit, if he found anything strange, he did not show it on his face—nor did he make any reference to the potion.

Discretion was, fortunately something he knew he count on with Severus Snape.

"May I be of some assistance?" Severus asked. He made no indication of moving from where he was, but did offer a glance towards Regulus.

"Just the Skelegro," Fabian said.

"Bottom left," Severus responded. "Labelled Skelegro. Do not ingest dairy with it unless you wish to vomit profusely."

"I know, it's not my first vanished bone." Fabian gave an effusive thumbs up and wandered over to the far left of the shop to peruse.

Regulus waited a beat longer before he looked back to Severus. When they had initially discussed a plan, Regulus had reasoned out a number of options to cover his tracks for a potion he intended to use for Death Eater purposes, including a fake out for the records or overstepping records entirely. Nonetheless, in the end, Severus had shut down each one, claiming that 'they already had a protocol for illegal potions' and 'it was hardly worth the paranoia.' Regulus held a rather different opinion on just how much he had to be paranoid about, but following reassurances that his name would not be directly associated with the purchasing of questionable potions, he settled to go along with their protocol. It was better than skulking around Knockturn, if that could be avoided.

"I received your notification. I am here to pick up the potion," Regulus said simply.

There was a switch to Severus's face that could, if you were feeling generous, indicate a smirk. He moved to behind the counter, retrieving a small box with a potion cushioned between it. "I trust you don't require any warnings either," he said.

"No, I'm rather confident in my precautions," Regulus answered, accepting the box and, with his other hand, delivering the payment.

"Then if your... _companion_ is done loitering," Severus eyed up Fabian, as he tucked away the payment. "I can return to stock taking."

"I'm going, I'm going," Fabian said, half tossing the coin onto the table. He went out the door with a disturbing wink.

Regulus waited until the door had shut. "He wasn't my companion. It was merely a matter of coincidence," Regulus responded awkwardly, fighting the urge to launch into an explanation that Severus had not asked for. A guilty conscience had been pricking at the back of Regulus's mind since his second puzzle night in mixed company, but acting guilty was not going to make it easier to navigate. "If you are busy, I will leave you to your stock."

"You have other things to attend to," Severus replied, with a soft snort. "Be careful with that; a few drops will do. Don't be as idiotic as people who require their bones regrown."

"I know better than to go sloshing potions around," Regulus said, dryly, immediately wondering what would happen to the locket if he were to dip it in the concoction. Surely as long as it did not spill, it could not backfire too terribly.

"You can't deny you've been acting strangely," Severus said.

"I have had a lot on my mind, certainly, but it is not a _deficit_ of the mind," Regulus countered.

"Excellent news," Severus said. "If you leave me trying to keep conversation with Sebastian and Lorcan for too long, it will be my brain that turns to mush."

Regulus did find Sebastian Avery to be the less exhausting of the two, but limited doses were no less vital, so he kept the distinction to himself. "Speaking of Mulciber, you have not been missing much, conversationally. He has been going on about some regulation for merpeople they are trying to enact. Apparently, the Ministry is being met with—quite literally—sharp rejections for their efforts. I do not know how this could possibly still surprise anyone."

"Being sharp is not what the Ministry has ever been known for," Severus replied.

"That is entirely too true." Regulus shook his head, then glanced to the back corner, where a boy around his age had been perched, the last time he'd come—and noting that the corner was empty. "I see your counter assistant is gone. Have you frightened him off already?"

"Feigning illness, but do not worry," Severus replied. "I give him a month at most, if he doesn't mix asphodel up with ashwinder again and perish earlier."

Regulus lifted his brow. "The standards for employment must be low."

"Yet, I remain," Severus said. "So make of that as you will."

"If the requirements are 'don't casually mix asphodel with ashwinder,' your position is likely to be secure."

"Not for much longer if I remain here talking to you when there is work still to be done," Severus replied. "Go. You have things to plan."

Though it sounded a little bit like being shooed away, the point was nonetheless valid. Regulus might not have an employer breathing down his neck, but his cousin's expectations were hardly less stressful. Even beyond convincing her of his (albeit false) devotion, there were high stakes in what secrets may surface—if he could just dig a little deeper…

"Best of luck with your stocking, then," Regulus said, tipping his head.

Once their conversation had drawn to a close, Regulus did not linger in the shop—nor in Diagon Alley at all. Back at the Iago house, he strode straight to his room without much notice, and there, he found the locket with its taunting, unmarred gleam. Summer had been riddled with preoccupations, each more distracting than he had expected—or rather, more distracting than he had wanted to admit to. He had a mission, a mission he could not lose sight of, and if that mission ended up coinciding with Gringotts, the reason was not because the Dark Lord or Bellatrix willed it so.

Unceremoniously, Regulus stuck the locket in his pocket. Next, he grabbed a wide-mouthed, reinforced vial, and along with his new potion, stuffed them both in the other pocket. Destroying the Horcruxes was important, and there was no time like the present...

Finding empty space along the Welsh coastline was not difficult. Finding empty space that did not creep too close to the water, did not leave him too open to observation, provided cover in the case of a poor reactions, and that was within wandering distance had been slightly more challenging criteria to meet. Nonetheless, after some exploration, Regulus found an offshoot from a long, rocky path, framed by a small cliff that curled around the side of a hill.

" _Homenum Revelio,_ " Regulus mumbled with a flick of his wand—and with the confirmation that he was, in fact, alone, he allowed himself to relax slightly.

Crouching behind a jutting bit of earth, Regulus pulled out the potion and the empty vial, feeling a little touch of nerves as he thought of Severus's warning: ' _Be careful with that; a few drops will do.'_ The potion was highly volatile, he knew, but he had requested it for no other reason. Carefully, he unplugged the top of each vial, then poured half of the potion into the empty one.

Though he had braced against the possibility of some horrible reaction, his hands held steady, and not a drop (or more) spilled. After re-plugging the original vial and sticking it back in his robes, Regulus secured the second half of the potion in a slotted crack of rock.

Stepping back,he pulled the locket out, tossing it unceremoniously on the ground and holding his wand aloft, attempting first a hovering spell.

As expected, the hovering spell did nothing—a countercharm, no doubt—but when his eyes darted around, he saw patches of greenery, including a few bushes of varying size. Mouth flicking up slightly, he sliced off the barest branch and instead cast his hovering charm on the branch with significantly more success. Maneuvering the branch over to the locket, he dipped his wand a few times until he had securely snagged the chain—and when he lifted his wand, the locket lifted in turn.

Regulus did not indulge in the feeling of satisfaction for long, instead slowly floating the locket towards the vial. Even more carefully, he lowered it into the liquid with his breath held taut in his chest.

Regulus was not entirely certain what he was expecting, but his hopes of damaging the Dark Lord's Horcrux went out with more of a whimper than a bang. When he crept towards the vial, he saw that the locket was half-submerged in the deep brown liquid with no immediate sign of decay. There was no guarantee that it would not decay over time, but he felt himself deflate, nonetheless.

Using the branch to remove it again, he watched the locket spin in slowly, alternating semicircles, the green emeralds catching an occasional glint of sunlight—untouched, as ever.

Frustrated, he flicked his wand to fling the Horcrux into the dirt, watching the earth around it decay at contact with the potion residue. Sealing the wide-mouthed vial again and pocketing it for safety, Regulus settled moodily next to the locket. He turned several _Scourgify_ spells on it, hoping to clean off what remained of the potion, but it was hard to trust even the thoroughness of a spell when he would be putting it on his person—so with a huff, Regulus leaned back against a smooth section of rock, and he waited, prodding it with a branch until he was satisfied that it was clean.


	8. Matters of Law Adjacency

**Chapter 8: Matters of Law Adjacency**

* * *

"Are you sure there's no one there?"

When Sirius turned to face Peter, he was staring up at the foreboding driveway gates that led to the pompously named Malfoy Manor. It was rare that the four of them got to do something by themselves these days, so Sirius had been on the edge of his seat waiting for it. He could use the distraction from his miserable fraternal error in judgement.

"They're parading up at Iago," Sirius said, walking up to the gate. "We could spend the next few hours pulling down every protective spell they've got on the place and making it obvious we've been in noseying about, or you can stop looking like the gate's going to thump you and nip in the hedge, bring down the wards from in there."

"It's not the gates I'm worried about," Peter said, glancing through to the hedges that led up to the ridiculously grandiose house. Sirius's former grandfather had made more than one disparaging remark about it.

"I can't thump you if you go through to the other side either." Sirius shrugged.

"I wasn't thinking about that either," Peter said. He gave a noise of sheer frustration. "Okay, now I'm thinking about that."

"Whatever motivates you, mate." Sirius put his hand on his heart. "I'm here for you."

Even in the low light of the night, he could see Peter rolling his eyes at him. Still, it did the trick. Within moments, Peter had been replaced by a small rat who tentatively slid into the plants. As long as he remembered the right order, he'd be fine. No one expected something that small to slither through their wards, and if there was, they didn't expect it to be able to cast.

"Do you think he's through?" Remus asked.

"Either that," Sirius began to answer, "or Peter is about to bounce right past us."

"Then we could forget about You-Know-Who. He could join a travelling show and make a killing," James said.

Even as he spoke, there was a telltale change of pressure in the air. Something that always happened when magic had been thick, then lifted. Almost as if he could smell it.

"Nice one," James said, slipping through the gate. Sirius followed, with Remus stopping to close the gates behind them. It didn't hurt to keep the illusion up, he supposed.

"Who's going where?" Peter asked.

"I suppose it's too much to hope for that Malfoy would have a mask and cloak out where we could see it," Remus said.

"Probably keeps his Death Eater paraphernalia in the bedroom closets," Sirius hypothesized. "James, you want to do that? Remus has a delicate disposition, and anything you weird you find in Lucius's drawers may scar him for life."

"What's one more?" Remus shrugged.

"This isn't a 'looking like you've been in a pub brawl' scar, this is a 'keeping you up at night screaming' scar, and I live with you," Sirius replied.

"Peter, go check the main hall. They may have things they want to show off. Remus can handle the library, see if anything is out of place." James glanced to Sirius. "Anywhere else they might be keeping something?"

"I'm not even sure they have a library," Sirius replied.

"They don't seem like big readers," Remus said.

"No," Sirius agreed. "But it's a show of wealth, and get a load of this place. Anything they can show off, they will."

"It's true," James said, as he took a few steps back to look at the door. "The place is massive. Your parents' old place wasn't this big."

Sirius shrugged. "Overcompensating. Besides, if the Aurors burst down the door of Number 12, they wouldn't have to look for dark objects. It's all right there."

"I'm surprised no one's been arrested for that," James said. "You'd think they would have."

"Nah," Sirius said. "Throw enough gold, and you get yourself a fancy Order of Merlin, and they don't come knocking at your door at daybreak."

With that grim comment, they crept inside. It took a great deal of speed to put every portrait to sleep as quickly as possible, especially any that might wake and recognise him. This was meant to be incognito. They could be subtle, it just took more time and effort.

"We'll meet back here in fifteen minutes," James said, voice low.

They had a vague idea of where things were, or were likely to be. As such, James and Remus went upstairs while Sirius and Peter split apart downstairs. Lucius was more likely to have a private parlour than a study, but having grown up around them enough, Sirius reckoned he could find a few things if he really looked.

The room was more or less what he expected. Ornate, furnished to excess with what was doubtlessly expensive antiques, and books that looked as if no one really read them. You could say many things of his deceased father, but every single book he owned, you could lay a wager on him having looked inside each one if not read it repeatedly and extensively. Sirius pushed the thought away as soon as the irritation flared. Whether it came from sadness or the relatively recent encounter with Regulus, there was little point in dwelling on things that wouldn't change.

He checked the drawers, but there wasn't much unusual. Bank statements, a few financial reports, unnamed item receipts, a variety of meetings scheduled, some date lists he couldn't identify a meaning for. Most were in the same, nondescript writing – a dictaquil, Sirius could bet. Trust Malfoy to not even take the moment to scribble something down. Everything was a bloody production.

Sirius duplicated what he could and shoved them into his bag before bolting down to meet the others. Something could come from it.

"Anything?" James asked. They were already at the meeting point when Sirius approached.

"Not sure," Sirius said, quietly. "You?"

"He must've taken it with him," James said.

"Nothing in full view either," Peter added. "I thought there would be."

"There should be," Sirius said, glancing at the staircase and walls. "He spends enough at Knockturn to keep it in business."

"Maybe not every family displays it for all to see," Remus suggested. He was glancing around as if there was anyone here but sleeping portraits.

"Maybe," Sirius allowed. He didn't think so. The Malfoys liked to flaunt, and the absence of ridiculously overpriced Dark objects littered around the place likely meant they had a hidey hole somewhere. "But if we've managed some pictures and duplicates, it's going to be Dorcas's problem now. Maybe she'll set it as one of your puzzles."

"Wouldn't Regulus notice?" Remus asked.

"If he does, what is he going to say?" Sirius asked. "Sorry, I think this is my cousin's place, and I can't show you where they keep their illegal junk even though I'm admitting I know it exists and where?"

"He could simply not come back," Remus said, instead. "It would put the entire group in jeopardy, if not indicate our involvement."

"Then you can yell at Gideon for involving him when it all goes wrong then, can't you?" Sirius replied. "Let's get out of here."

* * *

Elsewhere, Diagon Alley had grown quiet, the bustling crowds having thinned to no more than the trickle of departing shopkeeps or stray residents. From their third story window - tucked away in a vacant office space - Regulus could see the cafe that Barty would be apparating to shortly. There was a new item on its menu - 'Muggle Munchies,' which were supposedly shaped or decorated to look like various muggle… things. In support of the recent muggleborn rights protest, perhaps, given the timing, though he could see no explicit declarations of the sort, at least not outside of the cafe. Barty had proposed striking during the day to make a more explosive show of it, but when Regulus had emphasised the detriment to the Gringotts branch of their task, Barty had admitted that the cover of darkness would be most effective for their purposes.

To the right of their window, Regulus could see his own target: a shadowy nook along the outside wall of Gringotts, ideal for a bit of brief testing. Though he was under no delusion that he would be so lucky as to break through, he tried to remind himself that, at the very least, a lack of success struck off options from the list of possibilities…

… the problem being that, in such circumstances, any positive spin was progress in a direction he did not particularly want to go.

Barty joined him by the window, folding his arms on the window sill and leaning slightly to bump shoulders. Already, both boys were dressed in their Death Eater garb, black robes donned and hoods pulled low over their faces, but neither had put their masks on yet. For a moment, he watched Barty watching the street, tracing the assurance in his expression. Barty's eyes flicked over to meet his for a beat, but no trace if doubt pinched around them.

When Regulus looked back to the alley below, its street had already started to clear. For a moment longer, they watched quietly, waiting until the alley had been clear for a comfortable length of time before Barty broke the silence: "Are you ready?"

"I am," Regulus said, definitively. "Shall we regroup here?"

"Yes. Don't get caught," Barty said with a little salute, then secured his mask and disappeared with a pop.

Regulus could not see where Barty had landed, but he spent only a fleeting second on the search before fitting his own mask into place, looking to his own destination, and apparating there with the telltale tugging pop.

The shadows shrouded him well enough, but Regulus nonetheless wished he could cast a more advanced disillusionment charm. He had been practicing such charms and glamours and transfiguration options relentlessly, trying to find the best disguise for the decoy locket. He was very confident in the decoy's charm, in the end, but disillusionment in particular had proven tricky. Shrouding objects was not so challenging, but getting something to remain invisible for extended periods of time had proven a struggle - more so when casting it effectively on himself. Vaguely, he thought that he ought to keep practicing on the real Horcrux to see how long he could stretch the spell…

...but now was not the time to better hide a hidden thing when he ought to focus on better hiding himself. With a flick of his wand and a mutter he checked the area for other people, but with the exception of a few detections on the other side of the Gringotts walls, there were no other triggers of note. Fiddling with the protective enchantments may very well alert the bank's occupants, but as long as he kept his mind sharp and vigilant, he could apparate in a pinch.

With his hood pulled low and the restrictive eye slots in his mask narrowing his vision, it was impossible to see anything that was not directly in front of him, but Regulus situated his body so that he could keep a partial view of Barty's cafe. When his friend set the place aflame, that was his cue to watch the Aurors' arrival and determine how much longer he could stretch. The ambiguity was uncomfortable, but they would squeeze out what they could.

Regulus made himself as small as he could in the nook, close to the wall but not quite touching its white stone surface as he pulled out the potion. Ever since it had failed to destroy the Dark Lord's Horcrux, he had his doubts as to whether it would stand any chance against the Gringotts defenses. Undoubtedly, the enchantments were still different, but clearly enough, they were both powerful. Severus had recommended only a few drops, but there had been no volatile reaction upon contacting the locket…

Unplugging the vial, he took his wand and floated out a portion of the potion within. After lodging the vial closed again, Regulus guided his potion through the air and over to the far side of the nook, slowly easing the liquid against the white stone wall to avoid splashing. The stone glowed lightly on contact, and he held it in place, but the passing seconds revealed no change. As he lowered his wand, the dark liquid moved with it, and he eyed the ground around him, looking for any cracks or tiny holes. There were no imperfections in the stone itself, but where the wall met the cobblestone street, he spotted the dark lining of what appeared to be a crack. Leaning forward on his knees and securing a hand on the stone ground, Regulus maneuvered his potion this time towards the crack, twirling the wand slowly to thin the stream, straining his eyes for signs of degradation in the stone. Though it was difficult to see without light - and he would not dare risk a light, even if he wasn't already using his wand to control the potion - he thought he could hear the subtlest crackle. In his chest, Regulus's heart thumped more aggressively. The vaults of Gringotts plunged deep into the earth, far deeper than a small vial could manage, but curiosity struck with the question of whether the same enchantments protected the subterranean walls.

That curiosity came with a measure of guilt. Helping the Death Eaters was not the actual goal, however harmless the mission might be, but he reminded himself that no one was going to get hurt by a bit of potion burrowed into the ground.

Not even a minute had passed when Regulus noticed the glow across the alley - fire, eating away at the cafe. In the sky above, a smokey skull formed, its serpent tongue slithering out. Barty would be back in the abandoned office by now, but Regulus couldn't help flicking his eyes back towards the fire several more times as he he opened the vial again, maneuvered what remained of his experiment, and closed it back up again. His chest thundered a little louder as he saw the dark outline of what he assumed to be Aurors called to the scene, but they were focused on the fire. Regulus took only a few more minutes to test out a few neutralising spells for the bank's warding enchantments, but when - predictably - no change could be observed, he took his retreat.

Barty was standing by the window again when Regulus appeared with another _pop_. Even without approaching his friend, Regulus could see the glow of the cafe in flames. With an uncomfortable twinge, he bit his tongue, stopping himself from asking if anyone had still been inside.

"Are you ready?" Regulus asked this time.

"Not yet," Barty said. Regulus noticed then that he had removed his mask already, hood still tugged down over his face.

For a moment, Regulus stood frozen in place - watching Barty watch the fire, this time. His friend turned to look at him, flashing a confident smile; normally, that would trigger a surge of comfort, but it was difficult to tap into much comfort with a blaze in the background. Still covered by his mask, Regulus tipped his head, grateful for the cover. As Barty returned his attention to the scurrying Aurors, Regulus's mind was shifting back to the potion dripping down below the bank.

It did not feel like a complete failure, but when he thought of the carefully phrased report he would have to make to Bellatrix, he could not decide if that made it better or worse.

As it was, Regulus had only a few short minutes to dwell on his shrouding strategy before he and Barty popped back over to the Lestrange Manor to debrief.

"It is done," Regulus said once they were inside, met in the foyer by his eldest cousin. Regulus was removing his mask, just as Barty had done in the room, but Bellatrix merely flicked her eyes between the two boys with an unaffected expression.

"The Dark Lord will be glad to hear it," she had responded, "He is waiting for you in the parlour, expecting a full report."

For a moment, Regulus's thoughts stopped short, and when he shot a sideways glance at Barty, he was relieved to see a flash of surprise. It took everything inside of Regulus not to permit the wave of panic to splash onto his own face, but judging by his cousin's unchanging expression, he supposed he must have succeeded. Or perhaps she was simply unbothered by their discomfort. If Bellatrix was a superb Legilimens, then the Dark Lord was an even greater one. The invasiveness alone was offensive, but he had far too many things he'd like to hide-

-and if the Dark Lord had to find out about the locket, Regulus did not want it to be while he was standing hesitantly in his presence.

Regulus could count with his fingers, the number of times he had seen the Dark Lord up close, and with one, the number of times they had spoken. Involvement had felt so peripheral when he was still in school, showing up to meetings over the holidays and reporting directly to Bella, and though he knew he was supposed to feel elated at the opportunity of direct interaction, each step he took towards the parlour felt like another step towards probable death.

"We're being recognised already," Barty was saying as they neared the end of the hallway. "Given tasks that the Dark Lord wishes to hear about with his own ears."

Regulus had replied back with mirrored enthusiasm, but within his thoughts, he could focus on little else but the escalating risk of lying. He was not skilled enough yet to hide his thoughts without blatantly looking like he was hiding his thoughts, and if the Dark Lord had reason to believe he was being anything but forthcoming, there were far worse secrets in his mind that could be dug up.

Their masks had been secured on their faces again by the time Regulus opened the door to the parlour. Sitting at the table with a glass of red wine, the Dark Lord looked terrifyingly comfortable in a setting that did not match Regulus's experiences at all, and he fought any observable reaction. The shadowy cover of a remote forest felt more suited to their dark dealings, but there was something unnerving about his calm, focused expression.

Perhaps that was the point.

Regulus's gaze dropped to the floor as they approached, zeroing his thoughts in on the smooth hardwood flooring as his heart hammered against his rib cage.

"Tell me," the Dark Lord began quietly, but it was not a tone that could be mistaken for gentle, instead crawling like a chill. Regulus could see a bone white hand flourish, and without warning, his mask had dislodged, floating over to the table alongside Barty's. "How did your efforts fare?"

"The cafe has burned, my Lord," Barty said with a laudable firmness, despite the tremoring silence it followed. "It will glorify muggles no longer. If its owner has any sense, he will not, either."

"Very good," the Dark Lord said. If Regulus could have brought himself to look to his side, he guessed that Barty would be pleased by the remark. However, Regulus was focused rather intently on an unsuccessful attempt melt into the drooping folds of his ink-black robes, and that was interrupted only by the Dark Lord's shifted attention. "What of Gringotts?"

Letting go of any niggling hopes for blatant deception, Regulus permitted his thoughts to flow freely back to the potion - and to Gringotts. "There-"

"Look at me."

Feeling the command like a punch to the gut, Regulus steadied himself, then forced his eyes up. The nerves bundling and tightening in his chest only thickened when his gaze locked - and for all the rebellion that had been bubbling in his chest, Regulus felt horribly small under that dark, blood-mottled stare. Something like a smirk was tugging at the waxy skin around the Dark Lord's mouth, and there was no doubt that if the Dark Lord was amused by something, it was nothing to find comfort in.

"There was limited progress in identifying wards to dismantle, but a crack at the base of the building may circumvent the wards." With a little jolt of panic, Regulus felt the Dark Lord grasping at the memory, as potent as it was recent, but if panic was abnormal, the Dark Lord made no indication. If anything, he still seemed eerily satisfied. Regulus tried to think of nothing but Gringotts as he carefully added, "I did not have long to investigate, so it is no more than a hypothesis."

"Well done," the Dark Lord said, voice buzzing with its eerie lilt, but the praise felt empty. Even as Regulus's mind was released from the unwelcome - and violating - perusal, he fought to keep his face neutral, dropping his gaze to the floor again. The Dark Lord allowed it, this time. "That is all. You are dismissed."

Regulus forced a nod, then turned for an immediate departure. They had barely made it out into the hall when Barty spoke up, "Do you have plans for the evening?"

"Home. I feel rather drained, tonight," Regulus responded, and this time, it was the disappointment that he was avoiding in Barty's expression. He was half-frightened his legs might give, that the vague nausea or even the vague relief might flood in too thickly, but before departing, he muttered an intention to make up for the evening another time.

Back in Porth Iago, their summer home was silent, emphasizing the quiet thump of each step as he scaled the stairs. Anger had started to burn at the edge of his mind - once again his own - but when he closed his bedroom door behind himself, it clicked as softly as ever. He pulled out the potion then, mouth curling down into a frown as his fingers clasped around the vial. Frozen in place, he paused for a beat, then a beat longer before returning the potion to its designated place with the bubotuber pus and knotgrass. Dangerous as it was, that potion had been a failed experiment that had done nothing but help the very organization he would like to destabilise - and please the leader who would make disposable pawns of them all. If the invasion of his privacy had not been infuriating enough, then the shame of walking right into such a trap certainly took the feeling of misery up an additional notch.

A pawn in the Dark Lord's game, perhaps, but the locket was still safe. Distracting as the memory of Gringotts had been, at least the Dark Lord had not felt the itch to dig deeper into Regulus's thoughts, where far more punishable offenses were stacking higher and higher.

Closing his eyes, Regulus pictured the roof above him, honing in on a particularly comforting, flattened space that nestled amongst the peaks. In a tugging instant, he was met with the brush of a coastal breeze on his cheeks, the light of his room fading to the star-speckled darkness of an Iago summer night.

Within seconds, he had settled on his back, and as he stared above at the doming sky above, Regulus could feel the weight of it pressing down on his chest. Each slow-passing breath felt like one stolen moment after another - _he should have died in that cave, should have died in that parlour_ \- and not for the first time, he thought it would have been simpler if he had. Shakily, he closed his hand to a fist and tucked it under his head like a pillow, staring hard at the sea of pinprick light above him. There was nothing simple about the task he had set before himself, but the trickling anger was prime for focusing on why dying could not be an option until that Horcrux had been destroyed.

Regulus had taken on a responsibility, and he was nothing if not responsible.

* * *

There was a quiet hum of chatter about the Order when Remus and Sirius made their way to the latest meeting. The night was warm enough he could feel his jacket sticking to bare arms under it, so he didn't want to stick around long if he could help it. He'd catch up with James later on.

People had clumped together, which wasn't uncommon post-attack. Everyone had been talking about the fire in Diagon and how terrible it all was since yesterday. The heat had made it harder to control, with smoke billowing up and announcing itself to such a degree that Muggle-Worthy excuses had to come up with something for the muggle papers. It wasn't really anything new by now; they'd had fires, explosions, buildings collapsing and businesses ransacked frequently enough that people talked about how awful it was for about ten minutes then got on with their day. But muggles weren't half as blind as they seemed.

"I agree it's peculiar," he heard Dorcas Meadowes saying as he approached her, deep in chat with Edgar Bones. "It's as if they weren't even particularly trying."

"Death Eaters like fire," Sirius interrupted. He took the bag with the variety of things copied or filched from the Malfoys and held it out to her with a flourish. "The fruits of our quest, m'lady."

Meadowes looked at him in a way he was long familiar with, having had McGonagall as his head of house: exasperation and thinly veiled amusement. "Any trouble?"

"Nah," Sirius replied. "Piece of cake."

"I hope there's something useful in it," Remus added, appearing at his side rather than finding swot alley. Sirius didn't have high hopes given what he'd seen, but knowledge was half the battle with wards. You never knew when it would be handy to get in and out of places like that.

"As do I," Meadowes looked in, fingering some of the parchment with a furrowed brow. "I'll get it to Dedalus and Frank. We'll see if we can find anything to help the next time there is cause for a raid."

"We heard about the fire last night," Remus added. "It's a relief no one was injured."

"That's what's getting my goat," Edgar Bones said, glancing to Meadowes. "It's too clean, Dorcas. They're up to something."

"They're always up to something, Ed." Meadowes replied. "It does seem cursory – you're flaunting our petty little rules, so here is an appropriate punishment we can do quickly so we can get back before after dinner drinks."

"Mark my words," Bones said, raising his thick brows. "There'll be something more to it before too long. Alastor agrees with me. "

"I know. While it is Death Eater activity, it just isn't the biggest priority right now. There was a muggle house with an obviously used Killing Curse in Newport, a missing muggleborn family in Ballyclare, and unexplained reroutings of floo outlets from one of our suspected Death Eaters in transportation." Dorcas didn't sound happy about any of it, though she turned around to check the place for someone. "Gideon!"

A ginger mop rose from the other side of the room. "Yes?"

"We need someone in Transport sooner rather than later," Meadowes said. "Are you on board with Podmore, or not?"

"I already recommended him to Dumbledore," Gideon called back. "I don't think he's talked to him yet."

"I'll ask him to move things up, or we'll talk to him." Meadowes replied. "I don't want to keep getting blindsided. The next hint of a possible target, we need to get surveillance going. We'll spare a team for now at Diagon, in case Ed is right, because we know the Ministry won't. You and Fletcher can take the one to six, yes?"

"Not if my wife has anything to say about it," Bones replied.

"Not you," Dorcas said, shifting to look at Sirius.

"Me'n Dung's fine," Sirius said. It'd be a good laugh if nothing else. "But you're going to need someone who's less recognisable for the day shifts."

"We'll figure it out," Dorcas said, patting the bag. "Go grab the schedule from Alice before you run out of here. "

Sirius left her with a lazy salute. Remus didn't follow him this time, instead now going to go talk where Gideon and - if the top hat was consistent - Dedalus were having a natter. He found Alice Longbottom scribbling madly onto parchments, highlighting a variety of time and places as the rotas changed. If too many people who had no specific reason to be there hung out in a place of interest to long, the locals got nosy.

"Did you hear about Diagon?" Alice said, without even looking up from her scribbling.

"Yes," Sirius said, for what felt like the tenth time in twenty-four hours. "At least it wasn't Tinworth again. People are starting to say it's cursed."

"I'm not sure they're altogether wrong," Alice said, ripping up one of the parchments and setting it down. "Can you actually bartend or is this another exaggeration?"

Blinking, Sirius had no idea what to say to that. Where had that come from? "Uh, yeah, a bit. I come from a long line of people who need alcohol to tolerate each other, and I'm alright at the taps."

"Where did you learn to use the taps?" Alice said, striking off yet another piece of parchment. She held it to the side of him, "That's yours."

Sirius strained his neck to look at the parchment and saw 'JL' on it. "I think that's James's."

Alice startled, as if someone had touched her unexpectedly and peered back. She took in the empty space, then set down the parchment. "Oh, I thought it was both of you there."

Sirius laughed at that. While it was common more often than not, since James had turned into an old married man, they'd been less in each other's pockets. Sometimes he missed it, but mostly, he just found it funny when other people hadn't noticed. "Nah, I'm with Remus, but he's having a natter over there. Why are you asking about my ability to inebriate people?"

"Dung is barred from the Leaky again," Alice said. "But Tom needs a hand on the late shift, and Peter seems to think at some point you tended bar."

"Sort of," Sirius said, still in his amusement. "James bet I couldn't get behind the bar at the Three Broomsticks, but since I am effortlessly charming, Rosmerta let me try it out. I'm alright, but I've never done it as a job."

"Have you ever had a job?" Alice asked.

"Nope," Sirius said, shrugging. He had planned to figure something out, but it had never come up as an issue yet. "I never get on well being told what to do, but the pub is different. It's just chatting to people and dispensing drinks. Aside from giving a lot of head, I can pull. I can try to hold it down until Dung's out of the doghouse."

"Wonderful," Alice said, making adjustments to what Sirius assumed was his own schedule. She lifted it up, but hesitated. "Do you have to run?"

"I can also hop, skip, or jump, but I don't think that's a career," Sirius replied.

"I mean now," Alice said, worrying at her lip.

 _Uh-oh._

"What's on your mind?" Sirius asked.

"I wanted to ask you about your brother," Alice said.

Sirius wanted to go drown himself in the nearest well. It was bad enough hearing about Regulus and his exploits when he was at home. It was getting really fucking annoying having to hear about it here too. "What'd he do," Sirius said. "Insult you at trivia night?"

"What? Oh, no, I've missed the last few," Alice said, crinkling her nose. "I just wanted to ask, in your opinion, if he's...safe."

"Safe for what?" Sirius asked, unable to keep his heartbeat from kicking up a notch. What had happened? Had his brother's extra curricular moronic tendencies caught up to him already? Had he been arrested? Alice was an Auror, after all. Maybe the house would get raided. Maybe they'd finally cart his mad mother off to the north sea, and he could have the world's best bon voyage party for her.

"As a person," Alice said. "I haven't spoken to him in many years, and I know there's an estrangement, but as much as I remember him as well-mannered, I have no idea what he's like in private."

"He's…" Sirius tried to think of the word for it. "A swot, and he's soft in the head if you ask me. Why _are_ you asking me?"

"Do you remember my cousin Albert at all?" Alice asked. "From when you were young."

"We're pureblood, Alice," Sirius said, bluntly. "If I met someone before Hogwarts, I was probably their cousin or third nephew once removed."

"You'd remember Albert," Alice said. "He went bald but had a beard."

Something clicked on in his brain. "Oh, the one who looked like his head was put on upside down. Yeah, a bit. He was right and old, though, even then. What's he got to do with Regulus?"

"Apparently he has asked his youngest daughter out for ice cream," Alice said. "I'm asking if that's a safe thing to do."

Sirius struggled to contain his snort. "He asked out a _girl_?"

"As far as I know," Alice replied. "What do you say?"

"About him asking out a girl?" Sirius asked. "To ask if he wet himself from sheer terror doing it."

"I believe it was an owl," Alice said. "But she is family, and I do want to know if she's safe to do so."

Sirius had no idea how to answer that. He should have said right there and then that no, Regulus was a Death Eater, and she was an Auror. It was going to really put a crimp in her baby cousin's dating life if she arrested her date. He still struggled with the nauseous feeling that the thought brought up, but he had to be practical. Most Death Eaters either died or had been arrested at one time or another.

"He's a bit of a trouble magnet," he said, eventually.

Alice hesitated. "Would you consider him ungentlemanly?"

 _Ungentlemanly?_

Sirius didn't think whether or not you were gentlemanly had much of an impact on whether you signed on to become a murderer. Except, Alice was being far too calm in asking about it. Hesitant, but calm. It took him a beat to realise she wasn't asking 'is he a Death Eater?' She was asking if he was likely to try one on alone with her teenage cousin. The thought of Regulus, who Sirius was still unsure would ever even hit puberty, ever pressuring a girl into something was so laughable that he could barely contain his smirk at the thought.

"Are you asking if I think he's boyfriend material?" Sirius asked, relief mixed in with the sheer hilarity of the concept. "I'd say she's completely safe. I don't think his balls have dropped yet, if they ever do."

Alice rolled her eyes at him. "He's eighteen."

"So what?" Sirius said. "She's in no danger of ending up the spout from ice cream. He's not my uncle or my grandfather. The only thing more frigid than him is my mother's cold, dead heart."

"He does run around with some questionable people," Alice said.

"Yeah," Sirius said, knowing full well she meant gits like Snape, Avery, and Mulciber. "Lately, Remus and Gideon seem to be who he's hanging about with. Why don't you ask them? Or better yet, go talk to him yourself? He doesn't want me around him. That's how disownment works; you don't pick and choose."

"I didn't mean to bring up a sore subject," Alice said, lowering her voice to a soft murmur. Whether it was sadness, pity, or guilt, Sirius didn't like it at all. "But the next meeting isn't for another week, and I wanted to have some background."

"No skin off my teeth," Sirius said. "Can I get my schedule? I'm no help to you, so I should clear off." She handed it to him, and he took it wordlessly.

He left without getting Remus, but he didn't really want to talk to him at the minute. He didn't want to hear about their little club or about his (former) sibling or anything else right now. Maybe that was rude, but Regulus had made his choice to go crawling back to the people who almost got him killed. On his own head was his choices, and no matter the burning deep in his stomach when he thought about it, he wasn't Sirius's problem anymore.

* * *

When Regulus next visited Diagon Alley on the warm Sunday afternoon to follow, he wore no mask, and his fair-haired companion was Abigail Fawley, rather than Barty. Perhaps most notably, the intentions of the afternoon were constructive, rather than destructive, but the shadows of his recent mission still shifted at the edge of his thoughts. Tension knotted in his stomach, returning to the scene where he and his friend had so recently committed very punishable crimes, but no one had reason to accuse him of anything, certainly not days later. Diagon Alley had pressed forward as it always does, with only an air of discomfort and a charred storefront to show for it.

Regulus's own task had no effect to observe, but if he was honest, he did prefer it that way.

"I wonder if anyone has considered they were just a bad cook and fell asleep during," Abigail said, without preamble, following his gaze towards the burnt cafe. "I did that painting in bed once, and it took three days of cleaning charms to get the inks from my forearm."

Regulus flicked his eyes to Abigail, thinking that Barty's Dark Mark in the sky had been telling enough, but the heaviness of truth was not appealing at the moment.

"Painting in bed seems like it would be messy, even without falling asleep," he quipped.

"It does need anti-spilling charms, but they don't work if you put your hand in it," Abigail said, in a knowing tone. "I'm trying to stop falling asleep in chairs until I'm at least forty and can say it's my age."

"Forty might still be undershooting it," Regulus said, his tone lightening, slightly. "Is the painting process tiring?"

"Only if I forget to drink anything all day," Abigail said. "But sometimes I get into something and poof, dawn has arrived without announcing itself, and my feet are like lead. Don't you get that sometimes?"

Regulus nodded. "With books, usually," he said - or his thoughts, when they were plaguing enough.

"What kind of books?" Abigail asked.

"Magical disciplines, fiction, history, theory," he answered. "It varies."

"Why books?" Abigail asked.

Lifting his brow, Regulus replied, "Because I enjoy them - be it for the mental stimulation or the entertainment value." Ahead, he could see Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour - not too crowded, at first glance, which he counted as a blessing. "The more specific 'why' depends, of course, on the individual book. Some texts are to learn from, others are to pose questions. Some describe the world as it is or was, others fictionalise the world as it may never be. A book for every mood."

"Do you read books that ask questions then have to hunt down new books for answers?" Abigail asked. "Because it sounds like you could get into a loop."

"I don't mind it," he said, "though I must admit experimental theory doesn't always have a satisfying answer, even across different books. Sometimes the point is just to think about it and try it yourself."

"Do you try the stuff in them?" Abigail asked. "Because some of those books look pretty complicated. I went back to have a look at the library after last time."

Some efforts were more successful than others, but that didn't seem important to emphasise. "If it interests me, usually."

"Do you get hurt sometimes?" Abigail asked, coming to a stop outside the board for Fortescue's.

Opening the door, he gestured for her to enter, then followed inside. "Not yet. At least not in any significant way."

"Thank you," Abigail replied in a reflexive tone, as she entered the shop. "Doesn't it get scary sometimes, if you don't know what will happen? Or do you like that part of it?"

"The uncertainty can be unsettling," he admitted. "However - with few exceptions, I prefer not to take risks that I am not confident in."

"So the mermaid tail ice cream probably isn't something you want then," Abigail said, pointing to the options.

"That seems overly risky, yes."

"Sometimes, it's nice to push into some boundaries," Abigail said, eyes still scanning over the menu. "Not always, but...what's something unexpected about you? Everyone has something."

Arguably, the most immediately unexpected thing about him was his present dabbling in organizational betrayal, but that was a firmly restricted topic, no matter how neutral the listener.

"Me? I am a completely predictable individual," he said, mouth tugging wryly. "But what of yourself? Any notable surprises to speak of? Any discussion points for your artistic preferences?"

"I don't think so." Abigail scrunched up her nose. "Um, I like the fine arts, but judging by every old master I've ever seen, I think you have to be an old, probably bearded man before you're any good, and I don't think I'll ever become one of those. I like the early modern art, the French one, fauvism, because it's bright and colourful and makes me feel things."

"I'm unfamiliar, but emotional response seems like a good thing for art in particular," he said, flicking his eyes over to her, then up to the menu. "Do you ever favour that style in your own, or only in viewing?"

"I don't like anything I draw as much I hope. It never looks how it's supposed to." Abigail huffed. "I'm trying not to devote too much time to it, or I'll start considering it as a lifestyle or a career, and my mother's wails will be heard in the Highlands. She's very traditional."

Somewhere in the dark nook of his mind - the part of his mind that feared the worst - his own mother's shouting jabbed sharply. He might not be dabbling in life as an artist, but she would hate what he was doing with his life more than an artistic divergence from expectation.

"Enjoying and improving upon your hobby does not sound problematic to me," he said, though he knew it was not that simple if a hobby developed into a nonpreferred career - and if that career was actually necessary, though he had never felt particularly bothered with the point. "What would your mother prefer?"

"Um, being blunt, that ambitious women aren't feminine." Abigail flushed a little red, perhaps embarrassed by admitting the idea. "Careers are for widows or people who were too ugly to marry well. I think it's probably different if you like it. We got to travel a lot when we were young because my father works with the I.C.W. on trade agreements for the Ministry imports, so my sister is a tutor for languages because that's what she liked to do. I could teach people, maybe, if I got good enough."

"I don't think being ambitious about your interests is a bad thing," Regulus said. It was the sort of thing his Aunt Druella might say, but he estimated that several other women in his family would not like that comment very much at all, even if none of them held jobs in the occupational sense. Of course, he could not picture his mother or Bellatrix demanding to be provided a 'feminine' label, but it did not sound particularly complimentary, either. "On the contrary, it can foster growth. Perhaps I am biased, but being purposefully mediocre doesn't seem very fulfilling," he added, meeting her eyes as his mouth lifted up at the corner.

"Growth can sound a lot like change, and change can challenge tradition," Abigail said, but she mirrored a smile. "I think it's all a little silly, the idea that you can't be a proper lady if you don't look like and act really even mannered, polite, and well tempered all of the time. I've seen childbirth, there's nothing polite about it, but apparently you're not supposed to talk about that."

Regulus had not, in fact, witnessed childbirth, nor considered how polite or impolite it might be, but the connection seemed logical enough. "I will take your word on that, but to the first point…" He felt a twinge of hesitation but steeled his tone with confidence to add, "The question of traditionalism strikes me as...complicated. Tradition is an important foundation, and in it, there is a sense of history, structure, and identity. Changes, on the other hand, can bring chaos, which upsets the balance and plunges into the unknown… Yet a complete rejection of development results in stagnation, which hinders growth, and growth is needed to continue improving. Contradictory, but perhaps chaos is more linked to the approach." He could feel the reel of his thoughts teetering further down a path that probably was not best to discuss in such a setting, so he put a halt on them, gesturing towards the menu. "What flavour would you like?"

"That's kind of your question, isn't it?" Abigail said, peering at the board. "I know I like the old flavours. They're perfectly fine, and I'll enjoy them, but sometimes, something new or unexpected can lead to discovering something equally good, if not better. I'll be brave if you will. Pumpkin pasty?"

"Living dangerously, I see. Very well," he quipped back, leaving no significant pause before stepping up to the counter to place their order.

A certain distant quality had settled over him, like his problems might belong to someone else - or like there was not a sharp irony to the suggestion that his most daring departure was ordering an ice cream that tasted like something he already liked well enough. Regulus might be any teenager when he was here, handing an ice cream cone to a girl he scarcely knew, as if his life wasn't some sort of farce leading up to his inevitable murder when the wrong person grew suspicious of him. Any teenager could stride access the black and white checkered floor and out into the heat of late July, ignoring the charred destruction that 'some Death Eater' had caused down the alley.

Life was a script, a set of expectations laid out from the start. How comforting it had once been to know what to believe, who to trust, the rules to his inevitable marriage, the acceptable bounds in which to focus his interests and behaviour, a reliable prediction of how other people would respond to him. He could run through the script like a carving chiseled into his mind, familiar and reassuring, like a railing along the side of a cliff. Regulus felt as though he was on the wrong side of the railing now, grasping against the pull of some plunging gorge - but the path he had been walking wasn't safe either.

All he had to do was pretend that gorge was somewhere outside of Diagon Alley. Today, he would stretch his rigidity with something as comically harmless as ice cream, for once.

As it turned out, the pumpkin pasty flavour was not bad at all.

* * *

That evening, any sense of normalcy that ice cream with a Proper Pureblood Girl had afforded was swept away again as he attended Gideon's biweekly puzzle night - if only because it was difficult to ignore how furious his mother would be with the collection of company. Perhaps that ringing in his head would eventually go away and he would be able to look at Evans or Lupin or Meadowes without some associated recoil, but today was still not that day.

Evans would be facilitating tonight. When Regulus passed by Vance, Lupin, and Meadowes, their predictions were bouncing between potions and charms, but considering the previous meeting had involved something like a potion, he was guessing - and hoping - for the latter. The ruins around them supported the prediction, too, a perfect spot for eerie enchantments. The sun had not quite set yet, casting long shadows and burnt tones, but the meetings always went until after dark.

Gideon had organised a challenge recently, so he seemed to be allowing Evans full reign for the night, instead standing off to the side, just a few paces from a man named Caradoc Dearborn. Regulus still hadn't spoken to the man yet, but he was older - thirties, probably, a little older than Bellatrix, with dark hair and a focused expression. When Gideon gestured for Regulus to come over, it was a small relief; he did not feel comfortable arriving late, but he never knew what to do with himself when he showed up early, either.

Gideon looked out across the scattered groups. "We're a big crowd tonight," he said. "Let's hope Mrs. Potter is up to the challenge."

Regulus lifted his brow, flicked his eyes over to Evans, then back to Gideon with a subtle crinkle around his nose and mouth. "Potter, is it?"

"She's taken temporary leave of her senses," Gideon replied, amusement dancing in his tone. "We're trying not to hold it against her."

The Evans-Potter match might not be surprising, having started the year before the two had graduated, but it did strike Regulus as poor judgement... even if Potter was probably delightful to her, just like he was delightful to Sirius.

With a sour expression, Regulus shook his head, as if to shake off the thoughts. He could make no promises, but at least she was easy enough to avoid as long as they could sidestep future groupings. The interactions had not been terrible yet, but a willingness to marry someone like Potter - poisoner of attitudes - did not bode well.

"Have you met Doc?" Gideon plowed on.

"Not yet," Regulus confirmed, some of the tension already trickling off with the subject change.

"Caradoc, resident mind magic expert who I'm still a little paranoid about." Gideon indicated the man in front, then indicated Regulus. "Regulus, my uncle's nephew. No idea if he has a specialty, so I didn't think these introductions through at all."

"I don't know that I have a specialty at the moment, so much as a collection of interests that I am also skilled at," Regulus responded. Looking to Dearborn, he added, "What manner of mind magic?"

"Vocationally? Memory. Recreationally? This, that, and everything," Dearborn replied. "So no clues as to what your choice of a night would be?"

Regulus flicked his mouth up a little. "I'm afraid it is yet a mystery."

"Curses," Dearborn said.

"Did you already know Alice?" Gideon interjected. "She's been staring over here the last six, make that seven minutes."

"We've met in passing," Regulus responded, glancing over, though he wondered if it had more to do with her relation to Abigail than it did remembering him as a child. Alice Longbottom had been Alice Fawley, after all.

"That's the whole gang," Gideon said, clapping his hands together. "Nothing too horrifying, right?"

"Nothing too horrifying," Regulus echoed with a little nod, ticking off each member in his mind.

As the small groups started to shift, Regulus found a spot to settle until the puzzle was initiated, looking up at the sky. It still wasn't dark yet, but the weather was clear.

"Do you want to sit by yourself?" came Lupin's voice, a hesitation to his tone. He had walked up to his right, but looked ready to move away at any moment.

Glancing up, Regulus replied, "You can sit, if you'd like."

"I don't want you to be uncomfortable." Remus waited a beat. "More uncomfortable."

"I am accustomed to managing my own levels of discomfort," Regulus said, thinking the discomfort in question usually involved much higher stakes, at that. If anything, Lupin seemed to be the one who was uncomfortable. "With that being said... despite my initial reservations, you have not been a source of stress, so you needn't relocate on my behalf. Sit here, if you would like. Sit somewhere else, if you would like. It does not bother me."

"I could become a source of stress at any moment. It sneaks up on you." Lupin did sit down, despite saying that. "I was trying to be courteous. You may not be bothered about me bothering you, but it bothers me. I think I've just tied myself into a riddle all on my own, haven't I? I only wanted to ask if you were well and if you minded company."

"I am well enough and do not mind the company," Regulus said, thinking that was a much more straightforward question, "and as long as you have not come to this conversation equipped with unprovoked insults, I do not anticipate a problem."

"It depends what you consider an insult," Remus said, making a show of thinking about it. I did just think something you may not feel thrilled about, but I had the good grace not to say it out loud. I'm a Dark creature, not a rude human."

"That was close, but did not quite evade the qualifications for rudeness," Regulus said, wryly. "Announcing that you were thinking something unkind negates the politeness. One could achieve a similar effect with a backhanded compliment, all the while preserving their appearance of good grace, but that is another thing entirely."

"There are a lot of hidden rules to this," Remus admitted.

"There are." Regulus nodded. "But you have not struck me as a particularly rude person, generally speaking, so I will not hold the announcement against you."

"No one here is," Remus said. "It's part of club rules. No rudeness, no asking about the goat at the Hog's Head, and no getting anyone arrested. I don't think Dorcas keeps to that one as much, but no one has been yet so I think we're alright."

"I must say I like those rules." Regulus resisted the urge to look pointedly at Alice Longbottom. How securely the 'no arresting' rule would hold with both a Wizengamot member and an Auror present was difficult to say, but he was glad to hear it was a central sentiment, at least.

"I thought you might," Remus said. "We can be law adjacent, providing no one gets hurt. Unless it's Fabian, but he's accident prone. I take no responsibility for anyone else's lack of common sense."

"Nor do I." Regulus shook his head. "The other day, Fabian mentioned needing Skel-e-gro for a recent Quidditch incident, so I am not surprised to hear this is a consistent concern."

"Curiosity without impulse control," Remus said. For a moment, it looked like he was about to say something further but he simply sat back and looked around. "Did they already pick teams?"

Shaking his head, Regulus replied, "I don't believe so."

"So Alice would just like to say hello?" Remus asked.

Gideon had mentioned as much, too. Twisting slightly, he saw Alice Longbottom standing near the newly arrived Fabian, but she was still glancing over very pointedly. Not willing to risk eye contact yet, he looked back to Lupin. "That seems probable."

"Perhaps she's having an awkward day," Remus said, looking over. "I think I'm having one too. The reason I asked if you were alright was...I saw your owl last month. I was the only one there when - he? she? - arrived. I was unclear on whether I should have said as much in the interests of being truthful or if it would have been more polite to pretend I hadn't."

The discomfort Lupin had predicted swept in then, and Regulus could feel his shoulders stiffen, though he tried not to show it. Life had tumbled forward so aggressively in a month that those few days at Andromeda's almost felt like they had happened to someone else… yet it had not gone unwitnessed, after all.

"I am managing," Regulus settled.

"That's all any of us can do right now," Remus said with brief hint of a wistful smile. "Manage, and perhaps enjoy nights where a challenge doesn't require death-defying effort to complete. Although I'm not sure what Lily has in mind. It could involve mortal danger, but my fingers are crossed."

"Surely, it can't be _that_ dangerous," Regulus remarked, though it was difficult to know for certain without more extensive exposure to their typical riddles. The way Lupin phrased it made Regulus wonder how much Sirius had said about the night of the cave. Internally, he shook off the thought but kept his posture steady. "Though it is possible. Such things can sneak up, sometimes."

"I don't think it'll be potions. We had one a few months ago where Dedalus took the Draught of Living Death, and the first person to create and administer an effective cure won." Remus gave a small shudder. "I managed to walk in to get the mandrake forgetting to fully cover my ears and woke up two days later. It was embarrassing for everyone."

"That is quite embarrassing," Regulus agreed. "Lucky for him that it was a group effort."

"It would be more embarrassing if I'd died," Lupin said, evenly. By this point, Longbottom had ceased her hovering and was fast approaching. "I think that is my cue to leave. Enjoy your evening."

"You don't have to leave on my account," Alice Longbottom said, now within earshot. "Though you should go pick your partner lest you end up with Fabian and something explodes."

"Excellent advice," Lupin said. "Please, er, excuse me."

After tipping an acknowledging nod towards Lupin, Regulus accepted the inevitability of conversation. (Or perhaps she would completely ignore the obvious, though he doubted it.)

"Good evening," he greeted, finally looking at her properly.

"Hello, Regulus Black?" she formed it as a question. "I'm sorry I'm not more sure, but I don't think I've seen you since you were the size of my right arm."

Regulus nodded with more certainty. It sounded like an exaggeration, but she may not be far off. He had been quite young at the time. Frank and Alice Longbottom did not attend the social gatherings of pureblood circles - at least not the ones Regulus interacted with, which was most of them.

"You are correct in both respects," he responded. "I am more confident in the former than the latter, but it is probably a close estimate."

"Good," Alice replied. "Are you well? This isn't taking you far out of your way?"

"I have been enjoying them so far," he answered truthfully. "Out of the way though they might be, I do not mind it."

"Besides," Alice said, waiting a moment before continuing. "You had a date regardless, unless I'm misinformed."

"I did," Regulus replied carefully, examining her expression. He could see no strong conclusion in her eyes - if anything, it seemed that she was simply watching him watch her. As the Auror of her blood family, Alice Fawley Longbottom was more than a little bit unnerving, but at least he sensed no immediate sign of accusation...

"Is that something that's going to happen a lot?" she asked, after a beat.

Regulus held his gaze in place, resisting the urge to shift awkwardly in his seat. Regardless of whether she was seeking information because no one has clarified, or whether she was probing what he would say, he kept his expression stilled to something neutral. "Presumably."

"The presumption is based on whether you fancy her," Alice said, suddenly and bluntly. "She deserves more than to be strung along by someone who doesn't like her at all and only wants a pureblood girl to date. She's a person, not a trophy, and some people only want the trophy. So I ask if you're going out with her because you want to, not because she's just there, because I'd like to know if I should be worried about her."

That seemed like a trick question when one of his mother's primary criteria was avoiding emotional attachment. Whether or not Abigail's parents were concerned was still undetermined, but the opinion within this particular conversation was clear. 'I may be murdered before the relationship progresses much further' was not an acceptable answer, nor was 'I have not disliked our interactions' - nor could he even point out that it was less about trophies and more about allegiances - or lack thereof - because drawing any attention at all towards the purist community's tie to the Dark Lord was incredibly risky with an Auror.

Instead, he steadied his thoughts and went for straightforward truth: "I do not string along. To be quite honest, that seems like a waste of time and energy." He shook his head. Perhaps what he was doing was not significantly better, should it end poorly, but 'stringing along' was not the right phrase for it. If luck smiled upon his survival chances a second time, maybe it would all settle in the end, after all. "We have only had three conversations, so I cannot speak too deeply, but they were pleasant conversations."

"Liking her is an excellent start," Longbottom replied. "So my worry is for nothing? You're really just an bookish introvert into someone who paints and wears their emotions for all the world to see?"

To say her worry was for nothing was probably untrue - there was plenty to worry about - but instead, Regulus replied, "That is a way of putting it. Life can be complicated, but I have no ill intent."

"For what it's worth," Longbottom said, a smile cracking through her neutrality. "It's very cute. You have a very serious, structured look, and she's utterly unstructured in all things. Good luck."

The structure in Regulus's life went well beyond a look, but it did not seem to be the time or place to delve into that point. It was difficult to say how his family's… intensity would mesh with Abigail's lack thereof, and he supposed that was probably one of those compatibility points that he was supposed to be accounting for from his mother's criteria. Even so, Abigail still seemed a lower risk, and as off-beat as she could be at times, he found interactions with her to be intriguing (if sometimes battling), more so than than stressful, which was not very common among the people he was 'supposed' to be talking to.

He politely tipped his head in a little nod, then. "Thank you."

"I really think she's the one who should be more nervous about all of this." Longbottom moved her hands to behind her hips, looking away. "You are much more intimidating to interact with than she is. I heard you came second on the last batch; of course, I wasn't here, or it'd have been third. I look forward to checking placements later."

"We shall see how it goes," he said, wryly. If he were to boast, he was rather good at charms too - should that end up the puzzle, of course - but if his fellow puzzlers were tracking strengths, he preferred the surprise approach.

"Yes," Longbottom said, simply. "We will."


	9. No Second Chances

**Warning:** Some references to violence and child endangerment.

* * *

 **Chapter 9: No Second Chances**

* * *

Morning rays were slipping in through the drawing room window at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place as Regulus thumbed through _Fatal Fangs, Pernicious Poisons, and Other Malefic Maladies_. He had scarcely started reviewing the Acromantula when he felt the writhing mark on his arm start to burn beneath his sleeve. Clenching his hand to a fist did nothing to ease the sharp alert, and with a quiet huff, he marked his place and shut it with a _thump_ with the other.

Impromptu summons were always the worst sort, as far as Regulus was concerned, because they could be anything: A mission plan, an immediate task - or sometimes, it was unpleasant news. Summertime at the Welsh coast had come to an end just a week before, and one of their most recent cloak-and-mask gatherings had been to announce that there had been a detected break-in at one of their members' homes while they had been away - with nothing taken, suggesting burglary was not the purpose.

 _Vigilantes_. The Order of the Phoenix.

Narcissa had told Regulus the same, and he had wondered, then, if Sirius had been involved. He must have been if the target was the Malfoys. The chances of his brother leaving that 'honour' up to someone else were slim at best, but Regulus had yet to work up the nerve to ask him about it. Every other week, Regulus had met with Gideon's puzzle group - a group with several of Sirius's friends in attendance, as it had turned out - but even as summer was coming to a close, not once had he heard from his brother.

' _Have a nice life,'_ Sirius had said, and Regulus felt a different sort of a sting.

Gripping his book with both hands, Regulus felt the heavy descent of dread, and for a moment, he considered telling his mother about the summons, walking out the door, and disappearing into some London crowd. The temptation was not a new one. Not so coincidentally, it occurred at a rate similar to these summons, but he reminded himself of the danger that rashness could put his family in. Such dangers were off particular concern when those family members were unprepared for the doubt and the questions. Tensing, he steeled himself to stand up.

This was not sustainable, playing Death Eater lackey - a conviction he could feel twisting in his stomach - but if he was going to not do it, he had to not do it right.

Sparing only a brief glance up through the ceiling, he pictured the locket nestled safely in his floorboard again. At least he could look into some new ideas when he got back. With luck, the call would be some overdramatised announcement.

His mother did not require much explanation, of course - this was an outing she took no trouble with - and once he'd put on cloak and mask alike and dropped his book by the bedside table, Regulus pressed his wand to the ink-black mark in response to the call, feeling the tug yank him out of place.

There were ten Death Eaters in total when the arrivals stopped. At the center, the Dark Lord's imposing frame sent an uncomfortable chill down Regulus's spine as his thoughts flashed with a memory of the Dark Lord's unwelcome rifling through his mind, not long ago. When the Dark Lord unveiled their purpose just moments later, Regulus felt colder still. There were no plans for an overdramatised announcement today - but rather a strike on Platform 9 3/4.

No time was allowed to process their task - already, students would be gathering at the train for the departure to Hogwarts, but mostly likely, the Dark Lord wanted it to be so. That numb sense of horror had not yet faded when they were sent to their targets - yanked by a sidealong, though Regulus had not even identified who it was that had, in a rush of 'enthusiasm,' grabbed Regulus and one other Death Eater. Like the ignition of some terrible, rippling bomb, blasts fired out in all directions from their point of arrival, and for a moment, Regulus's limbs refused to move, frozen like a statue as his shadowy 'comrades' veered off in all directions.

No matter how vehemently Regulus's mind screamed that the platform was filled with children, _all sorts of children_ , including the _pureblood_ children they were claiming to protect, his tongue stuck treacherously to the roof of his mouth. He could barely see in this stupid mask, but when he turned towards the exit, he saw one of the larger Death Eaters - perhaps Rodolphus, at that height - was moving to cut off the stream that had started back towards the Muggle side.

Heart thundering, Regulus turned his whole body to the left just in time to see one of the Greengrass children shuffled swiftly onto the train, parents keeping an eye towards the chaos. Whipping his attention around the platform, Regulus found no sign of Abigail, but further into the crowd, he did spot a family apparating away - as another one watched them, huddled together in fright.

Fingers clasping his wand, Regulus could not slow his mind enough to think of a plan - could not see all of the Death Eaters at once to determine who could see _him_ and who could not. There was a concentration to his right, and the only thing Regulus could think of was hurling a blasting curse at the brick wall just behind the crowd, triggering a chorus of shrieks and a dusty cloud. With a swish of his wand, he spread that cloud over the group and hoped that at least some of the families would think to apparate out or scramble elsewhere.

How long he could manage that trick without someone wondering why his aim was so atrocious was yet uncertain - and although he was relieved to see several families scrambling out of the dust, catching sight of a red streak and a jarring scream from inside made his insides do an uncertain flipflop.

Perhaps - shield charms targeted outwards to distanced targets? He had never tried a shield that did not include himself, but perhaps expanding to the area... stepping out, and casting at the area? The incantations would probably take too long, be too obvious, which could incite the other Death Eaters more if they caught on-

Suddenly, a heart-stopping crackle pierced the shouts and the spells. _Aurors?_ he wondered in a panic, and with his wand still gripped tightly, he turned to face the swarm of arrivals.

* * *

Emmeline's voice cut threw the low hum of the bustling station. "Are you alright?"

At least, Sirius assumed that was Emmeline. The group had gathered outside of St. Pancras, snagging a corner table and ordering a bunch of coffees and sandwiches while they waited for an all clear sign from Frank. It was a lot more inconspicuous for there to be an Auror hanging about at the entrance to the Hogwarts platform on September first than it would have been for a bunch of them, with not a single sibling still in school. Still, in case of blocks to apparition or other lack of message abilities, it wouldn't seem wholly unusual for them as a group to be hanging about at a station a stone's throw away. They all lived close enough these days.

As the time had ticked closer to the train's departure, Sirius had slumped down on the table. His adrenalin had kept him going despite the lack of sleep, but with no sign of anything untoward happening, his limbs began to feel heavy. It wasn't that he wanted an attack, but a few more hours of sleep wouldn't have gone amiss. He forcefully opened his eyes to look at Emmeline (potentially a glare, he'd make his mind up when it happened), but a white wisp filtered down under the tables before dissipating stopped him.

 _Trouble._

"Bathrooms," Lily said, already in motion.

There were cracks of apparition as each went through the doors, dropping onto Platform 9¾ to find that a couple of Aurors, a murder of Death Eaters, and a gaggle of kids. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a swish of Emmeline apparating out with people in tow. That wouldn't do. That was almost certainly what they wanted, the second prize to the victims' slow, painful, and bloody deaths.

Scanning the area for a way to cause a decent distraction, Sirius saw a trolley of luggage and with a flip of his wand, sent it towards a couple of Death Eaters. This could have been an excellent new sport, Death Eater boules. Fifty points for knocking one arse up. It wasn't as if they had good visual awareness with those hoods over their masks. It wouldn't have been the first time he saw one trip over their own cloak, either. They really were the most ridiculous outfits to go running about in. Even off to the side, he could have sworn one just completely missed any sort of target and just blew a chunk out of the wall. While the debris caused coughing and sputtering, they made no attempt to correct the aim by firing out blindly again and instead moving.

(Unless...)

Sirius spent too long looking, having to dive out of the way of a sudden red flash from some big tosser who almost set his jacket on fire. He set chains to wrap around his knees and squeeze. Beyond that, he could see one both throwing curses and tap dancing; that had to be James or Marlene showing off, because the movement was shoving the spells off any sort of target. A glance back to the wanderer revealed no such constrictions, but still, they were mucking about with smog. It was almost as if they didn't really fancy being there at all.

(Of course, he knew of at least one, and his blood burned at the very idea he was still in the same shit as he had been a couple of months before, despite saying he wouldn't be.)

There was no way to know for sure. That night off the road in December had been dark, and he'd paid little attention to the mask itself when he'd seen his brother underneath it. It wasn't as if he could just go over and ask, was it? For a start, Sirius would thump him for still showing up. That'd be a pretty good cover, but would also mean he wouldn't get any answers other than a sulk. The Death Eater was small enough, but there was at least one other small enough too. It looked a decent bit like his wand, though he wasn't close enough to say for sure. Despite what James claimed, his feet were not so freakishly tiny that he could be picked out by the mere sight of toes either. There had to be a way to check.

Not far from where he was crouched, he spotted something circular and gleaming; a luggage tag, separated from its function but still definitely the familiar shimmer of a snitch. Smaller, and its wings lay limply at its side, but potentially enough that someone who had only a few months before been the Slytherin seeker to react on instinct. It wouldn't be definitive, not by a long shot, but if he took the mask now, half the bloody Ministry would see. Sirius went with his gut. He summoned the ball, then sent out a blasting curse behind a pillock trying to grab what looked like a parent without the kids around (were they blocking the exit?), then as he stood up, Sirius lobbed the ball to see what would happen.

That was, if someone didn't throw a killing curse at him while he was looking, but at least if they did, none of it would be his problem anymore.

The Death Eater snatched the snitch tag just shy of it head on smacking him in the mask, then opened up his hand to look at what he'd caught. With the startled fling that followed, it would have been easy to assume the tiny replica had burned him. More likely, he figured out the intention - just a second later, he looked at Sirius and visibly froze for a beat.

While the reaction to the tag couldn't have been conclusive, mixed with the reaction to it and freezing in place, Sirius was pretty damn sure he knew exactly who was behind that mask. On the bright side, he was conspicuously trying to avoid actually hurting anyone, but he was still running about in the garb as if he would. This was his grand plan? Cast on some bricks and hope no one notices? He couldn't possibly be this much of an idiot. The fact that he was standing there indicated that he very much was that much of an idiot. There was too much to do now to actually address it. No matter how much the thought of apparating over there, grabbing his brother by his robes, and taking him out to ask him what he thought he was playing at appealed to him, there were several other Death Eaters still on the rampage, and he was an Order member. He had to help these people first.

With a quick middle finger to his brother - just a nice hello, I see you, and if you hurt someone, I'm going to kick your head in - he went back to the fight. Most of the smog had cleared, with a larger number of people having clearly apparated their children out of harm's way. Other children were being ushered onto the train. He could see Frank engaged in a duel with a Death Eater blocking the exit, Lily trying to move the bewildered and frightened muggle masses out of the way, James lobbing what looked like History of Magic textbooks at a Death Eater. It was still a few minutes to eleven, but the whistle sounded and the pistons began to clunk. Sirius took one more shot at another Death Eater who was running towards the train, taking over the run and slamming the door shut as the train vibrated under his touch. He heard an 'oomph' behind him, so he was pretty sure that was Marlene giving the Death Eater a good kick.

Scanning the emptying platform, Sirius found only one more woman half-hidden by the bathrooms with what looked like a child too young for the school. With one last glance towards his brother, he ran over and apparated them to outside the ticket office. The whole place would need obliviating, so it didn't much matter now. It was over. He needed to get to the meeting point before someone wondered where he'd gotten to.

* * *

Upon arriving home and apparating immediately to his room, Regulus wasted no time tugging off his mask and cloak. As he shoved them both into his wardrobe, he took an indulgent moment to unleash a frustrated groan at no one and nothing in particular. Of course Sirius would show up to the fray. To be perfectly honest with himself, Regulus ought to have been more surprised if Sirius _hadn't_ made an appearance at something like that - though he did not particularly appreciate Sirius singling him out. Before leaving Andromeda's, Regulus had told him the plan, and drawing any sort of attention was not exactly helpful, even if it was just to flip him off. Perhaps he was going the 'childish thorn in a Death Eater's side' route; judging by the tap-dancing Regulus had seen, Sirius would not have been the only one doing so.

With a swish of his wand and a muttered incantation, he transfigured the cloak to look like any other finely made robes in his wardrobe and the mask into a hat. Granted, he did not have any other hats in the wardrobe, but no one storming in to arrest him was going to accuse him for owning a hat.

After they were both neatly hung in place, he shut the doors and let himself collapse on the bed, Reaching over to grab his book. He did not want to think about the sniffling children - what he could have done, ought to have done, and how sick he felt that he couldn't stop any of it. ( _Wouldn't stop any of it,_ some voice in his head said accusingly. If it had an actual sound, it probably would have sounded like his brother, and he did not like it very much at all.) With a stab of guilt, he wondered if the Fawleys had sufficiently avoided the trouble. Abigail was going back for her seventh year, today; he had not been able to spot her at all, and he hoped it was because she had already gotten out of the way. The whole ordeal felt so unnecessarily bullyish, targeting children, and the more uncomfortable he felt, the more he wondered if anyone around him felt it at all.

His eyes flicked down to the locket beneath his bed. Regulus hesitated a moment longer, then slid down to the floor to pull it out, if only for a few moments.

Despite his fervent attempts to destroy it, there still wasn't a mark to be seen on its gleaming surface. He sat himself on the bed again, cross-legged and back to the door as he thumbed the 'S' bitterly. Was there even a point to any of it? Could a Horcrux even be destroyed?

With a huff, Regulus tugged over his book and opened it back up to the Acromantula, tapping on the jeweled surface as he tried to focus on reading and forget that disaster of a morning hadn't happened, at least for a little while.

* * *

Sirius wasn't the last one there; Frank came in a few minutes after he did, only to say he couldn't stay because the Ministry needed a report, but that they could schedule a meeting tomorrow to break down what had just happened. As if it wasn't bloody obvious. Muggle parents as sitting ducks by a muggle platform where magical parents can apparate or floo. The briefest thought of his own parents deigning to do something as common as _walk_ there was amusing for only a moment, before he realised there was an unmistakable copper smell. He plowed through to find Remus wincing as a (gloved) Benjy was applying something to a large zigzag on his arm.

"What happened to you?" Sirius asked.

"Nothing more than the confirmation I would never have made it onto the quidditch team," Remus said, and the way he tightened was the only sign of a wince he had to be holding in. "I didn't dodge."

Renewed irritation hit him. "It was difficult to see." He could barely grit the words out because he knew exactly why. It might have thrown off the Death Eater aim, but it made their job harder too.

He felt a prod into his shoulder and in no way jumped, and anyone who said he did was a liar. He turned to face James, fine aside from cleaning his glasses. "You alright?"

"I'm not the one getting the Healer treatment," Sirius indicated Remus with flourish.

"No, but I know he'll be fine 'cause he's with the Healer." James put his glasses back on, then took them back off scrubbing furiously as if he couldn't charm them clean. "I lost sight of you."

"I didn't lose sight of you," Sirius said. "Was that you putting on the ballet of the dancing crows?"

"Distraction, not destruction." What a lie that was. Destruction was practically his middle name. "Not bad, right?"

"No," Sirius said.

"You don't sound suitably impressed," James said.

"Would you like a round of applause for casting a spell a third year knows?" Sirius said.

James harrumphed. "Nobody appreciates my genius. Where's the wife?"

"So she can mock you more?" Remus interjected.

James rolled his eyes. "She appreciates a good tale of daring and the defeat of evil-doers!"

"What tale are you planning on telling her?" Sirius asked. "That wasn't a defeat. It was running away."

"Dancing away," James corrected. "No one's dead or arrested. We got to humiliate some idiots. Crack a smile, it won't break your face."

"It might break yours."

James gave him a look of disbelief, whether that was because he thought Sirius wouldn't do it or because he thought he'd come out the victor in a punch up. "I know it's almost Moony's time of the month," he said, "but what's your excuse?"

"Nothing," Sirius huffed. James was right; it was a victory, minor injuries, kids safely on to the protections of Hogwarts, rampant humiliation. "It doesn't matter. I'm knackered; it's pissing me off."

That wasn't all of it, was it? He was smarting that he'd let a Death Eater get away who was still merrily eating death and causing chaos, even if he wasn't hurting anyone one-on-one. Besides, he _was_ hurting someone one-on-one. His idiot brother was hurting himself. He was supposed to go home, explain you have to be post-pubescent to join the murder gang, and get out of the way. What had he said to Lucretia? Was rushing it even breaching the subject? How was he hanging about with the Prewetts one night, and in the morning, enabling the attempted murder of eleven-year-olds? He could throttle the little idiot.

"I'm going to get some air," Sirius said, pushing past his friends and appreciating the warm autumn sun the moment he stepped out in it.

There were too many eyes on him while he was trying to think and not ready to actually talk about it because he didn't know what he was meant to say. He had an obligation, if he knew of an active Death Eater, to tell the Order. He had an obligation not to get his younger brother carted off to Azkaban for a near terminal case of spinelessness. He had no obligation not to kick the half crunched can of baked beans someone had left on the pavement, so that was an excellent distraction for two whole seconds.

 _I'll keep you updated,_ his brother had said, which made it seem like the silence between them had been permanently broken. Despite this, Lily had heard from him more recently. He had something to investigate, something that had nearly been the death of him, and now he was back to nearly being the death of others. _I don't want to hurt anyone_ , but even if it was just a gash, at least one person was hurt from something he was involved in. He can't stop it by mucking about with bricks. Some things had to be faced head on.

But Regulus had never been good at that, had he? He was always so terrified of getting it wrong, of their mother's wrath, of becoming just another traitor that he couldn't see the power he did have. He just had to learn to use some of it. He may only have a small opening for his investigation, but he also only had a small opening while everyone was still stinging from the loss by friendly fire. He said he'd wriggle out of it, or take his stand if it came down to innocent people, but he clearly hadn't. What was keeping him? Was he so paralyzed by what everyone else thought that he didn't realise he could voice an opinion, and due to the virtue of not being his delinquent non-sibling, have a chance of it being listened to?

Where was their mother in all of this? He was her baby, the last of the Most Noble House of Posh Wankers, and she was willing to let him throw himself at the mercy of someone else's cause? Where the hell was their grandfather? Whinging and mewling, that's where. He'd cowered and toed the line at the murder of his own son. It was pathetic. They were all pathetic, wishy-washying about and hinting at things and never actually _doing_ anything until it was too late. How could they talk of strength when they bent over backwards and bowed like sheep?

Idiot. Why did Regulus have to make things so _difficult_?

Sirius let out a huff. He was still doing it too, wasn't he? Playing by their stupid rules. Sneaking around, pretending he hadn't seen his brother, slinking about like he had something to ashamed of. What he should be ashamed of was unclear, since he felt like everyone would have a different answer. Stretching ahead an hour or so from where he was standing - less if he'd brought the bike with him, and barely worth mentioning if he apparated - was Number Twelve. Had Regulus gone back there? Given a report to his mother of how he blew smoke heroically? But if he had gone home, what was to stop Sirius kicking about in the street trying to calm down and just apparating across the street and walking in? If no wards had been put on the summer house, then it stood to reason nothing would stop him just going in the door. There was likely to be wailing paintings if he did, but he wasn't scared of those. There was nothing in that house that could do anything to him anymore. They surrendered that when they forced his hand to leave. It wouldn't be the first time he'd had to give Regulus a kick up the arse at risk from a screeching match to deafen him, but he had foolishly thought it would be the last.

 _Fuck it._

While he had yet to figure out how to stride and apparate, he knew the way well enough. He'd spent enough time sneaking in and out of that house that he could have done it with his eyes closed. It didn't look any different. His heard hammered in his chest, feet on the verge or turning around and walking away, but something lodged in his gut and grounded him in place. What was the point in being brave if you didn't use it? He took a deep breath for good measure, wished for something strongly in about seventy-percent proof and forced himself forward. Strategically, he could plan this. It was lunch time. His mother would be in the garden getting her toes kissed by that bloody house-elf. Regulus would be in his room, where he always wanted to be left to his own devices. He only had to walk in the door, apparate to the top landing, and turn the same knob that he had a thousand or more times and _ask_ Regulus what he was playing at. Every chance he'd squawk for their mum, but it seemed unlikely he'd land himself in trouble by doing it. He needed answers before he saw the Order again. That was it, end of. He needed to know what was happening before someone got hurt worse.

His feet felt heavy, body impossibly so, and the road had never seemed so large. This could be over in a heartbeat if his mother happened to have differed her routine. He doubted it. She had always been stuck in her ways, why would it change now? _Move_ he told himself, or he was just as cowardly and full of bluster as the rest of them.

Despite having an inkling from the Iago house that nothing would happen if he just turned the door knob, he half expected the snake to come alive and puncture him to death. The inside of the house smelled the same; musty, the stench of centuries old objects and narrow walls. He clicked the door behind him as quietly as he could, then with a _crack!_ , landed across from his own old room. Something bubbled at the sight of it, his name still etched in the door, and he wondered if he opened the door, would he still see the room there as if he hadn't left it three years ago? He didn't know what was more unsettling: that it would or wouldn't be the same. Still, he had to focus. There was some squeaking photos, but they were too small to make too much of a ruckus. He silenced them for good measure. It wasn't that he was afraid of getting caught, even if his heart was still slamming against his ribs, but that he had something in mind, and getting caught would guarantee he'd never get it.

He hovered by the door for a moment too long, trying to figure out if you were supposed to knock on the door of your (supposedly) former sibling if they were throwing themselves into trouble or if you could proceed as per normal and just walk in. He couldn't see the house-elf anywhere, so he risked knocking. At least if there was no answer, he could check the library, maybe the study (even if the idea of entering that unbidden still felt strangely _wrong_ ), and conclude he wasn't here and work up the nerve to try again.

Maybe this was a stupid idea, he thought as he rapped on the door, but if he was going to be stupid, at least it wouldn't just be him.

A brief silence followed before the door opened.

"Yes-" Regulus had started to say to Sirius's knees when the word fell dead from his mouth. His whole body seemed to seize up, subtly, and his eyes flicked up to Sirius's face, somewhere behind him to the staircase, then back to his face again.

Twice in one day. He _was_ good. "Don't scream the house down," Sirius said, even though as he said it, he doubted Regulus had the vocal ability to do so. He softly closed the door. "I just wanted to know the hell is going on."

Regulus looked at the door again, as if he expected it to swing back open at any second. "Did you honestly just _walk into the house_?"

"No," Sirius said, pointing his thumb to the door behind him. "I knocked first."

"Can't this conversation wait until we're a little less…" - he punctuated with a look back to Sirius's face - "here?"

"Should I have asked you at King's Cross?" Sirius asked, pointedly.

Regulus turned his mouth down into a frown, standing silent for a beat before he responded, "I told you that I'm trying to pull what information I can before it is cut off forever. I did not hurt anyone - the blasts were just distractions." Even as he said it, he looked uncomfortable.

"No, you just stood there playing with architectural redesign while the people you were with attempted to murder eleven-year-old children. What, you want a round of applause for standing by and not participating?" Sirius had to roll his eyes. He was such a little kid sometimes. Actually, most of the time. "Where is the line for you? Do you even _have_ a plan for what happens when they do cut it off because you hit that line and won't go through with it? If you plan to stay till they end it on their terms, you'll end up trapped, and any investigation will be for nothing 'cause you'll be too dead to do anything about it."

"It's not that I want to wait for their terms - I don't want to do it at _all_ \- but I don't want to lose this window either," Regulus said, frown deepening and posture stiffening. "Today was awful, but if the Dark Lord is doing what I am pretty certain he is doing, then _that_ is a greater risk. It is possible that staying will amount to nothing, maybe my luck is spent, but there is no way to know… And how can I just - ignore that? Who else is going to watch for it, if not me?"

"If you're already pretty certain, is that not enough? If you become completely certain, what change does that make? Let's be honest here, you're not Bellatrix, and you'll never be Bellatrix without hurting and killing people, so how likely is it you're going to get close enough to get a confirmation?" Sirius shut his eyes for a moment, leaning back against the cabinet. He tried to imagine it, but even in the darkness, his mind wouldn't form it. It sounded too far fetched. But hadn't Regulus being a Death Eater at all once been far fetched? "Why does it have to be you?"

"Because the chances of another Death Eater discovering this and opting to take such a task forward is highly unlikely," Regulus said with a dry sigh. "The Dark Lord was careless once - he didn't tell me the first time, maybe it could happen again…"

"And if he is, what can you do about it?" Sirius asked. "You'll either get yourself killed trying to do something about it yourself or hand it off to someone who's less likely to die doing something about it, which you could do now. I still can't believe knowing that you could get offed at any minute, no one has told you not to go back. I know you don't listen to me, but you're risking life, limb, and lineage on the off-chance a mass murderer will give you a hint. Surely someone you give a shit about has some opinions about that."

Regulus shrugged. "I haven't mentioned the hint part, specifically…"

Sirius opened his eyes, if only because he wanted to get across how bemused he was at the whole, frustrating situation. "What have you been telling them?"

"I haven't been saying much at all, for the moment," Regulus admitted.

"You've still not said something?" Sirius said, pushing off from the dresser. "What happened to talking to Lucretia? She's not soft in the head, and they did just murder her brother."

"I talked to her… It just didn't seem like the time to go into extensive detail about being a traitor if I'm trying to avoid immediate suspicion," Regulus countered, defensively.

"D'you think she likes Bellatrix more than she likes you? Why would she talk to her over listening to you?" Sirius asked. It was a ridiculous notion. They were all swots, everyone on that side. "I know the idea of bringing it up to Mum incites blind terror, but you speak the same language as Lucretia, and Ignatius can't be a big fan of Voldemort. You know what the Prewetts are like."

"I'm going to - I just don't want to rush it. This isn't the sort of thing I can take back or redo if I mess it up," Regulus said, then pressed his lips to a line.

"At the rate you're going, it'll take ten years. You shouldn't be able to mess it up. You're an adult - stop asking them for permission to live your life as you sit fit." Sirius indicated downstairs. "It doesn't say 'Toujours Mangemort.'"

"'Toujours Mangemort' is not the intention, but I just need to find the right moment. Not everything can be pushed," Regulus said, his tone a bit tight. "This isn't the sort of thing you can just walk in and announce."

"Not everything, but you have to talk to someone," Sirius implored. "If only to keep your head above water and stop me risking my own life by coming in here."

"If it's such a risky bother, then just leave me to it. You've been happy enough to do that until now - everyone has been." Regulus's voice had tightened again. "I'll deal with it myself, no additional life endangerment required."

"You're a living, breathing life endangerment!" Sirius replied, and he wasn't even all that good at that, given how many times he'd almost been killed. Regulus needed looking after, or at least locking in a room with some books until the war was over. "You're endangering your own life on an off chance! I didn't know you were going to go join the Death Eaters; I thought you were smart! If I'd realised you were about to do that, I'd have dragged you out of the dungeons by your robes a long time ago."

"What did you think was going to happen?" Regulus asked, a little stiffly. "That everyone would just accept the humiliation? There are consequences to someone leaving, whether or not that person is the one who has to experience them."

"You have the self-preservation of a tea cup. _I_ have more self preservation than you do, and I have poor impulse control and a lousy temper. How about someone, anyone, stopping the under-age wizard from signing his life away before he's old enough to make those decisions himself?" Sirius rolled his eyes back hard enough he almost made himself dizzy. "They _like_ you. You're still worth something! I don't know what hold Voldemort has, to keep making his cronies, but you should be worth more than him. You weren't raised for a life of servitude, you were raised to be practically magical royalty, and no one is batting an eye about you being answerable by life and death to some bloke you don't even know?"

Regulus shook his head. "While I'm sure they don't _want_ me to die, I doubt they want me to be a traitor either. The Dark Lord did not deserve my loyalty in the first place, but somehow I do not think that will be an easy point for most to separate out and accept."

"Loyalty to _them_. He's not them. He's not on the bloody tree, is he? I'd have remembered that." It was French, but it was the wrong sort of French, probably Belgian. It wasn't nearly celestial enough either. "Why does he get more of a say about your future than you? I'd love to see them justify that."

"I don't know. You would have to ask them," Regulus said, shaking his head.

Get anything resembling a logical conversation out of his blood? That had never worked before. From the moment that hat had cried 'Gryffindor!', his opinion wasn't even worth what little it had meant before. It wasn't the same thing. Especially with the paternal branch, who could probably see whatever was left of Orion more in their son that wasn't named after him than they ever would in Sirius 'Orion' himself. They weren't wrong, but it stung anyway.

"The longer you seem fine with it all, the stranger it will be when you eventually say no." Sirius shrugged. "Pick someone who'll hear you out, point out that you don't know anything about this guy, and yet you're all scurrying around doing his bidding or faking it. Come up with contingencies, reasons you may be asking, if it makes you feel better, but until you do, they're going to all assume you're fine and happy, and you're not."

"The planning is not the problem here. Do you honestly think I haven't thought it through?" Regulus asked, folding his arms loosely.

"I don't know; that's the problem," Sirius said. "I had no way of knowing if you were alright unless I ask someone else, or have to duck you in a battle and lie when asked."

"You did not exactly sound interested in my plans back at Andromeda's," Regulus countered, a bit dryly

The sorting hat was cracked, Sirius decided. Regulus was a rubbish Slytherin. No self-preservation and now, no ability to understand sarcasm. "You were leaving," Sirius said, plainly. Didn't that mean the resuming of no acknowledgement? He always ran his mouth when he got an unexpected sting. "The rules on talking to me at all are clear, but I think the rule book got thrown out somewhere between here and Teddington because here I am, in a house I promised our dearest mother I'd never come back to, and you didn't mind talking to me at Andromeda's. I have no idea what I'm doing. If you're any clearer, please enlighten me."

"In this situation, we are both trying to avoid detection." Regulus's eyes flicked downward, then back to Sirius again. "Talking isn't the problem so much as the risky circumstances."

"I've snuck out of the house enough times that I figured sneaking in would work." Sirius shrugged. He'd probably lingered too long as it was. "I just don't understand what having a powerful family matters if they don't have your back. Loyalty goes both ways."

To that, Regulus just pressed his lips in a line.

"Isn't that part of why you're pissed off with the Death Eaters? Loyalty is expected absolutely but not given absolutely?" Sirius pressed. Just because they were related to you didn't give anyone the right to use you. A lesson hard learned, but valuable.

"It is," Regulus responded, more firmly. "But that is not exactly the same."

"Even if you're family, no one has the right to use you," Sirius said, bluntly. "I know you don't want to test them, but you have two paths ahead: either tell them and have them react or let something happen that forces you to tell them because you'll wait for a good opportunity and it will never come. Then you'll have exactly the same choice as option one. You might know a little more about the Death Eaters, but you could also end up doing something that you'll never forgive yourself for. Either way, at some point, you'll have to be brave and face them. "

Regulus nodded, slightly. "I know."

"Just tell someone who won't skin you alive before Bellatrix does the honours or you get caught," Sirius said, sighing deeply. "Give her someone to answer to rather than create her own story."

With a pursed expression, Regulus replied, "I don't expect she would have a positive spin."

"No," Sirius said, grimly. "Are we all right? I really don't want to have to hear about you from my flatmate. It's rubbish when he knows more than me."

Regulus tipped a little nod. "I thought you probably did not want to hear about it; but as complicated as this may be... yes, I would say we are all right."

"I want to know." Hadn't he just said that? Maybe not in so many words, but aren't Slytherins supposed to be good at subtle?

"I realise that now, but that doesn't change my recent assumptions," Regulus countered. With a firmer expression, he added, "I realise it does not look like anything has changed, but I just ask that you trust me while I'm reading the situation. Perhaps it doesn't have to be a disaster, but I don't want carelessness to be the reason it is."

"Don't wait too long," Sirius replied. "I better clear off. I don't fancy being caught because my charms have worn off."

Again, Regulus nodded and shot another look downwards through the floor. "It's nearly lunchtime, so be careful."

"I'm going straight to the door," Sirius said, even if his curiosity about the room next door was burning through him. He wanted to ask why his name was still there, but it was going to be a fight, and the fight had drained out of him when he'd realised that no, Regulus had some idea of the trouble he was in and was just doing the Regulus thing of waiting and watching for how to respond. Whether he'd move and do it in time for something not to back him into a corner was up in the air, but what could Sirius do about it? No one was going to listen to him when it was his own life, let alone anyone else's. Looking for some kind of sentiment in this house was an easy way to get hurt.

Sirius opened the door to an empty landing. "Be good," he whispered. "And if you can't be good, just don't get caught." Excellent life advice given, Sirius apparated with a crack into the hallway.

His hand paused on the doorknob, hairs on the back of neck standing at attention before he ever heard her voice.

" _You!_ "

So close. Ten more seconds, and he'd have been out the door and far away, but no, he'd had to linger. He leaned his head on the door, tempted to smack his forehead against it a few times.

" _GET OUT!_ "

Sirius turned around, his face twisting up as he did. "My hand is _literally_ on the door. I was about to go out of it when you started shrieking at me like a demented banshee." She looked older, though it wasn't clear whether that was the last three years or the anger twisting her features more than usual. Her hair was greying, tucked behind in some mockery of grief. If she'd cared worth a damn, she'd have tried to find out who killed her husband, pulled her child away from the people who did it, and torn out some entrails for good measure.

"HOW DARE YOU _BEFOUL_ THIS HOUSE WITH YOUR TRAITOROUS PRESENCE!" his (former) mother screeched.

"If you'll kindly SHUT UP," Sirius hissed at her, "my presence will be present somewhere else presently!"

"TO FORCE ME TO LOOK UPON MY GREATEST SHAME-"

"Is there a mirror here somewhere?" Sirius asked. By now, Regulus had definitely heard them, and this was going to be a whole nightmare.

"You _DARE_ -"

"Yep," Sirius said, leaning against the door. There were portraits squawking now, a cacophony of disapproval. Home sweet home. "The lot of you can pipe down and all, you're almost as bad. No, actually, you weren't as careless as her: one traitor kid, one in horrendous danger, and a dead husband in three years. _Bravo_!"

"You have _NO RIGHT_ to interfere-" his mum sputtered.

"Maybe I wouldn't I have to if you'd do your _BLOODY JOB!_ " Sirius roared back her. "You're just such a giving person, absolutely tickety boo with having tea with the folks who probably murdered your husband; you're even lending them your youngest - sorry, _only_ son - for cannon fodder. How great and noble of you that when they fuck you over, you just bend more?"

" _YOU DARE TALK TO ME ABOUT NOBILITY!_ " If she got any higher, only dogs and dog animagi would be able to hear her. It was a gift and a curse. "YOU, WHO SPAT ON YOUR OWN HOUSE-"

"You dare talk to me about loyalty?" Sirius growled, with a bitter laugh. With every interruption, he could see a trembling fury building. "You always said there was no greater loyalty than to family - then told me to get out because I wouldn't do what you wanted? Then let them get away with the slaughter of an innocent man? With placing your entire lineage in jeopardy by having the kid who can't throw a decent punch get thrown into battle with people who'll kill him or let him rot in Azkaban? Even the child who still _desperately_ wants to believe you're capable of loving anyone would still rather risk his _life_ and _soul_ than risk your disapproval? YOU'RE A _HYPOCRITE_ AND FUCKING _USELESS_!"

Sirius heard the throw more than he registered what was being thrown. He reacted on instinct, shattering whatever knickknack from a random relative she'd just mindlessly tossed in his direction. His heart heat hard against his chest. _This is why you left_ , something in his mind said. You were going to end up bitter and angry, and it would be the end of both of you.

"When you let them kill him for their cause, I hope you remember it was your failure," Sirius said, voice tight, hand pulling at the knob shakily. "I can't think of anyone better to die alone, surrounded by the ashes of the House you helped burn down."

Without another word (if only because he wanted the last word), he pulled the door open and with a single stride, apparated out with the noise of his heartbeat still pounding in his ears.

* * *

For an unsettling beat, the screaming downstairs fell silent. Regulus, for his part, was lying face down on his bed, wondering at his chances for success if he were to feign an afternoon nap - or perhaps more effectively, feign dying tragically (and rapidly) in his sleep. These considerations were given no more than a few seconds of thought when he heard his mother's shrill voice cut upwards through four floors:

" _REGULUS ARCTURUS BLACK!_ "

Dread trickled down his spine like a splash of ice water, and his body felt as though it was laden with stone. For a few seconds, he was fused to the bed in complete immobility, his own (full) name ringing loudly in his ears, but the longer he kept his mother waiting, the worse it would be. She was unlikely to forget that she had called up to him, and equally unlikely to believe he had not heard her.

Peeling himself from the bed again - so brief his respite had been, from Sirius's visit - and shot one longing glance at the window. Perhaps there could have been a way to make climbing out the window an option, but four stories was a risky jump, even with magic, and there was no guarantee his mother would not have seen him in the garden through any of the many viewing windows. Even so, any alternative sounded better in hindsight. Of course getting out undetected would not be so simple as getting in undetected…

Fingers already twisting up inside his sleeves, Regulus apparated down to the bottom level - and one look at his mother's face shattered any hope of pretending he had no idea what she was about to say.

His mother took a harried breath. "We do _NOT_ consort with those who would bring us down with the filth and the dirt. You _know_ this; you know to do otherwise is to bring dishonour upon your house and your name." Slowly, she worked her jaw. "Do these things mean nothing to you?"

The truth and the lies were dueling on his tongue as he tried to determine an answer that would neither set her off, nor preemptively invalidate his own argument that maybe, just maybe, the current state of things was not best for _any_ of them - an argument that Sirius always made indelicately but that Regulus did not disagree with, recently.

"I care a great deal about the honour of my house and name," he said carefully to the wall just behind her.

"You do not act it," his mother said, hotly. "The disrespect to converse with a traitor... These rules were put in place nearly a millennium ago by people older and more powerful than you. Do you think yourself exempt from their wisdom?"

Treacherously, Regulus's mind flickered with the slightly petulant thought that she had been 'conversing' with Sirius just minutes before, but he did not dare say as much. Her words sounded like a trick question to his ears, and he fought to keep the sting off of his face. Older and more powerful, indeed, but with little of the present context.

 _No,_ he knew he was supposed to say, _I don't think myself exempt_ \- but in some way, he thought he might feel it. Rules had their importance, and with experience came greater wisdom, but of all the terrible things he could do, for once, talking to his brother simply did not feel like the worst of them.

"I think it is important to consider familial wisdom," came the next evasive response. "But…" His stomach turned in on itself. He should have spoken more frankly with Aunt Lucretia first - and felt a wave of annoyance that Sirius could not have been just a little swifter out the door. Gripping tighter on his sleeves, his limbs stiffened to steel as he dared to add in a quiet, measured tone: "Situations can be… complicated sometimes, can't they?"

"There is nothing complicated about betrayal!" his mother replied, taking an evaluating look across him. "Your behaviour has been erratic of late. Coupled with this intrusion, it is disturbing and speaks to a pattern, not an isolated incident. What has caused this leave of your sanity?"

 _My sanity is not the problem,_ Regulus thought firmly, but his mouth was sealed shut as he stared at the flooring. Of course she was not going to understand - certainly not under these circumstances. Temptation tugged him to claim his rejection of Sirius was intact, that he had not welcomed him in - after all, his brother technically _had not_ been invited inside - and to see the furied disapproval fade even slightly from his mother's expression. He imagined being told not to give the traitors any excuse to even think they might be welcome, then dismissed on his way with a lingering but more tolerable chill…

But at the core of it, his unsettled feelings were not centered on Sirius, and he was not sure if that would be better or worse. What would happen if he said what could not be taken back? Would she banish him from the house right then and there? Would she order him to his room to deal with him later? Was there a right way to say it, or would anything outside of the family narrative be inherently wrong, no matter the reason and no matter the delivery?

Regulus could feel his heartbeat thudding steadily quicker, his tongue far too dry and sticky. Beneath the pad of his thumb, he could feel the threads of his sleeve hem, following the pattern of each criss-crossing string as if it could stop that reeling feeling in his head or the sick feeling in his stomach. She did not like silence - he needed to speak, but-

" _REGULUS!_ " she barked at him. "Don't you _dare_ ignore me!"

There it was. As she most likely intended, the scolding yanked his attention outward. Regulus hated the way his shoulders tensed in a wince, but no deep breaths or string patterns were likely to help him now. She did not want excuses for his silence, only answers - and if he did not say it when she asked him directly, how could he sound sincere when he brought it up himself? How could it sound like anything more than a rebellious whim or situational tantrum if it appeared to come from nowhere at all?

"I have felt… unsettled. The Dark Lord is using pureblood lives like blunt weapons," Regulus forced himself to say, his voice quiet but steely. "It's not that I want to-"

" _What are you blabbering about?_ " his mother cut in, managing to emphasize every word. "Stop sputtering like an idiot child and tell me the truth!"

A flicker of wounded irritation tensed the muscles in his face for just a moment - he was not an idiot, nor was he a child - and flashes of his brother's arguments with their mother prickled sickly at the back of his mind. It could not end like that - he had to fix this, but he could barely look at her without wanting to take it all back. That might fix part of the problem - but shatter another…

With a soft, calming huff, he responded as carefully as he could, "This is not how I wanted to express my concerns, but that _is_ the truth. He's using us. Might it be worth a little bit of consideration?"

"Used how?" Her words were sharp, and his mother took a step towards him, closer than comfort allowed. "Have you been treated carelessly? Has your cousin been lax in her family duties? More so than usual."

"They were careless with my father's life - careless with -" He nearly said 'Kreacher's life' but stopped himself just short of it as he forced himself to look at her face. "- the lives of magical children at the platform, whether or not their parents could apparate them away. We are made to go against Aurors, to die or get arrested ourselves while he sits back and enjoys the infamy." His mouth seemed to be talking by itself now, the argument rolling off his tongue too quickly to halt. "I wanted to help, but - is that one-sided risk really best for the bloodline if we're all dead or imprisoned?"

His heart was thundering. His mother's expression looked as though it could burst into a shout at any moment, so he braced himself for it, just in case, flicking his eyes down but holding his shoulders as straight as he could, despite feeling like he might crumble into the flooring.

"This is what you believe?" Her voice vibrated with tension. "There is some proof to this idea? It is not simply some grief induced madness or more humiliating still, _cowardice_?"

Tensing at the accusation in her tone - perhaps worse than a shout - he felt his mouth go sticky again, so he nodded, slightly and silently.

"Go find your voice!" his mother indicated the stairs. "I have calls to make, and your grandfather will want to hear it from you, not mumbled into your chest like an errant child! If my brother has once again lost control of a daughter and put _my house_ in danger through his incompetence, there will be hell to pay."

"I was not trying to say Bella was the problem," Regulus said quickly, glancing up again - but it sounded argumentative to his ears, and he did not want to prolong the interaction any longer than it already was. "But - yes - of course," he added uncomfortably, thinking that probably was not the correct response either, even as he turned towards the stairs to retreat to his room.

"BELLATRIX HAS CHARGED HERSELF AS THE PROTECTOR OF ANCIENT LINES AGAINST THE FILTH, AND YOU STAND BEFORE ME AND ACCUSE HER OF INDISCRIMINATE MURDER!" His mother slammed her hand so hard on the banister that it vibrated, and Regulus could not stop himself from jolting. "Which is it, Regulus! She chose to pledge herself to the Dark Lord. Was she protecting our family and our world as you follow in her footsteps, or is she negligent, placing my only son in danger, the last heir of our family, while thinning out truly pure magical lines for no reason other than they are in the way?"

Regulus gripped the handrail along the stairs, catching sight of Aunt Elladora's line of house-elf heads and feeling a particularly cold sickness in his gut. He could not bring himself to turn back around, but he responded, "Both, in a sense... It's... complicated."

"Then take today to find a more articulate explanation for your beliefs, your actions, and bringing a traitor into this house before tomorrow, lest you humiliate yourself any further than you already have," his mother said. "Find your manners while you're at it!"

Wincing again, Regulus tipped his head into a slight nod without turning around, eyes locking on the staircase escape route rising up in front of him. Like water through a sieve, he could feel the fight draining out of him, his mother's words hammering in his skull no matter how much he tried to shut off his thoughts. He wanted to fall asleep, wake up, and discover this whole morning had been a motivational nightmare intended to spark the action he had been preparing himself to take.

But there was nothing fuzzy or dreamy about the way the banister slam had vibrated under his palm as he gripped it. The moment had forced itself on him after all, and there would be no second chances now.

"Yes, Mother."


	10. From the Outside Looking In

**Note:** Hello, readers! This chapter is a bit different, focusing on some outside (and probably less common) perspectives for the bulk of the chapter. This information gets covered in the chapter, but just wanted to provide a Black family cheat sheet for anyone who would like a refresher to lay it all out together:

Arcturus Black: Patriarch, father to Orion and Lucretia, grandfather to Reg and Sirius, married to Melania Macmillan  
Pollux Black: Father to Walburga/Alphard (disowned and deceased)/Cygnus, grandfather to both Reg & Sirius and the Black sisters, married to Irma Crabbe  
Lucretia Black Prewett: Orion's older sister, second cousin to Walburga and Cygnus, aunt to Reg and Sirius, married to Ignatius Prewett  
Cygnus Black: Little brother to Walburga (13 year gap, so pretty significant), father to the Black sisters, uncle to Reg and Sirius, married to Druella Rosier

* * *

 **Chapter 10: From the Outside Looking In**

* * *

When Sirius reached the flat, he barreled in with his heartbeat still thundering in his ears. He came to a skidding stop by the mismatched chairs of their dining table (ostensibly still a dining table despite the fact no one ever ate meals at it) and let himself take a moment, then two, then another. His eyes were stinging, sweat prickling at his skin, and he could see an adrenaline induced tremor in his fingers for the second time that day. He was stuck in limbo with the desire to burn out this energy doing something that took his mind off the twisted features of his face and the low burn of fatigue creeping into his limbs from too much use and too little sleep. He rolled his feet from ball to toe and back again, trying to figure out which feeling would win out, but the sweat was already fading to an uncomfortably lukewarm stickiness that made him feel uncomfortable in his own skin. Not an unusual thing from any time spent in the grim, gaslit hallways of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, but familiarity didn't make it feel any less gross.

Whatever he did now, Sirius knew he'd just landed Regulus up to his neck in it. What to do about that wasn't clear; butting in would mean another screaming match, not to mention look worse since being disowned meant you weren't supposed to go seeking people out, but leaving Regulus to deal with it alone hadn't gone well last time. Nothing was ever easy.

The door to the flat tried to click open, but Sirius must have slammed it hard enough that it now required a jiggle. When that jiggle started, Sirius let his hand drift away from his wand. People who knew how to get past the cursed step and the jiggle were people he didn't have anything to fear from.

"Sirius?" came Remus's voice, the least scary of all werewolves and secret hoarder of mismatched socks.

"Yeah?"

"I can't get the door open," Remus replied.

"You're a wizard, Remus," Sirius called back. "Apparate."

"I don't feel like I should risk splinching myself just to get into my own home," Remus called.

Sirius had forgotten that only a couple of hours before, Remus had gored himself up by not ducking what was probably a slicer. Instantly, guilt seeped into his stomach. He walked over to the door and gave It a bit of elbow, staggering forward and almost colliding with Moony and sending them both down the steps outside.

Remus gave him a quizzical look. Sirius shrugged. "Walking disaster today."

"Is that different to any other day?" Remus asked.

Sirius went to push his arm but realised he couldn't tell under the robe jacket which arm was the injured one. "Which arm got messed up?"

"Why?"

"I'm not going to smack you where you're hurt," Sirius said, indignantly. "I said I was a disaster, not a sadist."

If he'd been a sadist, today wouldn't have happened. Leaving wouldn't have happened. The entire line of thought was chilling.

"Maybe you shouldn't push me when we're at the top of steps," Remus said. "I'd probably grab you, and we'd both fall."

Wouldn't that be a fitting end to the day? Fuck, it wasn't even mid-way through the day yet. Today was terrible. He wanted to go back to bed. There wasn't anything stopping him. That was the great freedom of independence. If he wanted to flop arse up on his own bed, no one would stop him. He kicked off his shoes and decided he was just going to rest his eyes for a minute.

When he startled at the sound of the door being knocked despite being wide open, the light through the windows was different. He must have been that worn out.

"I didn't know if you wanted to sleep the day away or not," Remus asked.

Sirius ran his hand over his face a few times, trying to will himself into a conversational functionality at least, but he could still feel pressure behind his eyes yelling at him to just roll over and go back to sleep. He pushed the thought away and patted a spot on his bed a few times.

"I think you're supposed to say 'up' when you do that," Remus said, his voice mingling a mild annoyance with an ill hid amusement.

"Up," Sirius said, not missing a beat.

Remus stared at him. For a moment, Sirius thought he might leave, but he wandered around the organised chaos and one of Sirius's shoes and sat down. "Most dogs get a treat at this point," he said.

"You can have a treat if you want one," Sirius said. "What do you fancy?"

"I'd settle for knowing if your shirty mood was down to a lack of sleep or something else," Remus asked.

"Should've aimed bigger," Sirius said. He was pretty sure he still had chocolate in his bedside drawer. More for him, then. "I'm okay. It's shit to have to muck about and try and stop Death Eaters and get out before we get arrested for trying to help. I'm frustrated."

True, even if it wasn't the core of his annoyance right now.

"I'm not sure getting arrested for breach of statute or vigilantism is worth sticking around," Remus said. "Not that I was much use today."

"And I was?" Sirius had spent half of it mucking about with his brother, not doing a decent job of protecting anyone. Especially him. "I hate it when I'm useless."

Remus gave him a commiserating nod, even if It wasn't quite commiserating over the same thing. "Coffee?"

"Can you just pour it down my throat?" Sirius asked. "The whole pot, except whatever you wanted."

"How generous of you," Remus said, pushing himself up. "You're sure there's nothing else?"

There wasn't anything Sirius could say to that without giving the game away. Everyone had expressed enough opinions last time and had butted in even when they said they wouldn't, _James_ , and admitting to having a clash with his dear old mum was going to cause even more havoc. He needed to decide what he could do, or if he should do anything. Regulus was about to get a taste of what it meant to be the bad kid, and while a part of him felt like it was still his responsibility to help him with that, helping him with that would reinforce it. As much as he wanted to tell them all they could go fuck themselves with rusty nails for having the nerve to preach loyalty without gving it, he ran the risk of drowning out Regulus's voice just as he was beginning to find it.

They only had options now: either listen to him or end the line, unless Regulus decided he'd had enough and left. Even if he might consider it when he got a taste of having someone breathing down his neck constantly and questioning every decision and every thought and every action until he was barely breathing from the weight of it, Sirius never truly believed he would. He still cared too much in the way everyone was supposed to but hardly anyone did.

He hated waiting, but what else could he do?

Remus had been staring at him too long now, his brows reaching for one another across a deep frown.

"Just sick of waiting around for shit to happen," Sirius said, as truthfully as he could. "I wanted to make a difference."

"We are," Remus said, quietly. "Being careful is an important part, but reacting does make a difference. It's not running away; it's being smart."

"Yeah," Sirius replied. "Just wish it felt like it."

Running away from a fight never had sat well with him, had it? Smart or not, he felt better facing things head on and cleaning up the mess later. Intervening would be a really stupid idea, and he'd met his quota for today. Maybe he'd feel differently tomorrow. .

* * *

For centuries, the noble and most ancient House of Black had kept an ancestral home that passed from parent to child, and Number Twelve was no exception. Not always heir to heir: the last time their family faced the looming threat of extinction had been in Phineas Nigellus, and although his own eldest son and heir had the first son of his generation, Arcturus's father had forged out on his own to make his own home with his children. That his youngest sibling was still a child when he married his wife was the most probable reason that the house eventually made it to Walburga's grandfather. Of all of Phineas's children, only his eldest and youngest produced sons that bore the name, and it had seemed fitting that these two branches would converge to prevent catastrophe once again.

There had never been a time when Walburga Black did not call this house home. When she had been born, there were three generations alive under this roof, and with her (traitorous) brother's birth, it had all seemed to be going quite well for a while. The house was sturdy, and so was the House with four new boys and four new potential branches. The idea that it would feel on the verge of crumbling into ruin had never crossed her mind as a young woman. Her own children wouldn't bear the name, her father often said, but the blood would run through them, and though it certainly would make them less important overall, she ought to take comfort in that. It was as close to permission not to bother with the nonsense of marriage or children she could have gotten then.

That wasn't what happened, in the end.

Arcturus had a single son and called it a day. His brother Regulus had never married. The first of her two brothers had been a fool, and she ought to have seen the knife in her back years before he put it there with his final words. Cygnus had some success, but it was beginner's luck, and rather than curbing his teenage girlfriend, he had the foolishness to fall in love with her and marry her. A pretty love story for those who don't want to throw themselves off of roofs rather than listen to such things, but completely impractical. Lucretia had managed to be practical, even if her husband was equally ridiculous.

(No, that was unfair, was it not? No one would ever be as ridiculous as Druella Rosier.)

Orion had been wholly sensible as a person. Intelligent, but he wasn't demanding acknowledgement of it. He wasn't demanding as a rule. If she had to do something as impractical as loving someone, she supposed she did love him. Not in love, as some flight of fancy, but they had understood each other in a quiet way. Quiet ways had never been Walburga's way of things, and if she were honest with herself, she missed having him there more day by day. To walk past the doors of his rooms and feel a sense of loss was understandable, but she wanted his counsel now, if only because her only (remaining) child was also a quiet sort.

The following morning, Walburga sent for the nearest equivalent in Lucretia. They had been thrust together as age-mates, dorm mates, and if she could admit it, friendship for as long as either could remember. She was cut from the same cloth as her brother, her father, and her nephew.

They were standing on the edge of something terrible; her stomach trembled as she felt a hand to the wall, and in her mind's eye, she could hear the cracks in the foundations. For all that had occurred yesterday, Regulus had denied none of it, and he had not come to her nor Bellatrix for their say in any of this. He'd disappeared for days, and now their house breached led to the conclusion of whose counsel he'd sought - and it was surprising. Regulus had never been surprising. He had always had manners, grace, control, and patience. Now he was secretive; he slung accusations; he withdrew rather than fight his ground, but refused to waver on it either.

Most of all, Walburga could not understand _why_ any of it was happening. Why go there, knowing the pain it would cause? Why not come to his own mother and speak his mind, if he had one? What has changed? Grief was possible; he had idolised his father, and the loss may be causing more trouble than was obvious. But grief was a time for family to stick together, not wade into the waters with traitors.

By the floo, Walburga waited. She did not want it to be seen that there was a familial gathering from the outside. This was private, and it would be dealt with in private. They'd had enough of their personal business leaked to the gossips of society as it was. One failure was unfortunate. Two, a pattern. Three, they were struggling to hold up their heads despite being one of the oldest magical families alive. It was time to face that something was clearly wrong, and if she had to talk to someone about something so humiliating, then a practical friend was her clear preference.

Merlin help them all when her father got wind of all of this. By the time he did, she wanted it to be clear that once again, this was one of Cygnus's offspring failing in her family duty and not her.

Lucretia arrived within minutes. Neatly, she brushed powder from the skirt of her robes with a firm series of pats. Punctuating the effort, she smoothed a wayward lock behind her ear, streaked grey with hints of brown that held tells of their shared age, if not the weight of expectation that Walburga had felt herself burdened with for so long.

"Walburga," Lucretia said by way of greeting, some measure of curiosity behind her eyes as she strode the few steps toward her, but she wasted no time on frivolous pleasantries before continuing, "What is troubling you?"

Would it not be simpler to tell her what wasn't? There was the desire to snap about it, but even Walburga knew this was a courtesy and a favour. "If I continue on, I must have your word _nothing_ leaves this room until I am ready for it to."

"Of course. You have my word," she responded, without missing a beat.

"My only son has decided to take leave of his senses upon exiting school. He's been sneaking around; he disappeared for a few days; and now he has consorted with a traitor." All of which made him - and by reflection, her - all the more worthy of shame. "Whether this is because he is easily led, grieving, or both, it's not acceptable! But he has never behaved this way before and claims to be in danger, something Bellatrix nor I can combat, so I'm...unclear over the correct action to take."

"How uncharacteristic," Lucretia responded, though the knit in her brow did not look entirely surprised. "If I were to guess, I do think he is troubled by what happened earlier this year. Just recently, he came to visit us… The moment I mentioned Orion, he looked more like a statue than anything, but the boy has been at school this whole time. Maybe coming home made the truth of it more real." Lucretia looked like a statue herself, in that moment, but she spoke on, "I'm unconcerned by his wandering, but consorting with traitors does not sound like him. Are you certain?"

" _He was in the house!_ " Walburga snapped. "For all I - or you - know, that's what he was doing with his wandering! Grieving is not an excuse for such disregard of the rules."

Lucretia lifted her brow fully, that time. "That is… very concerning," she said with a little frown forming as her eyebrows dropped to a furrow again. "Yet a poor choice in location for someone who is trying to sneak around secretively. Did Regulus actually _invite_ him? Consorting may still be evident, and no less a concern, but between the two… in question, flagrant disregard for the rules does sound like one more than the other."

"He didn't deny it! He called it..." Walburga could not refrain from spitting the word out. " _Complicated._ "

Pausing for a beat, Lucretia first parted her lips, then pressed them to a line. Pinched though the expression might be, her tone was as even as ever when she spoke. "It must seem that way to him, if he is tangling with the disowned and claiming danger. What danger does he fear?"

"Mingling with traitors _is_ dangerous! Yet the danger he speaks of is his foray into the Death Eaters," Walburga replied. "Under normal rules, I have never known him to be a liar, but he is claiming that what happened to his father is not a singular incident of carelessness but a pattern; they are killing pure and filth alike. If this is so, what is Bellatrix _doing_ that she isn't saying, and far more importantly, why did he not go to her instead of... _him_?"

Lucretia's expression pinched further. "I see…" She hesitated for only a second before continuing, "The circumstances of Orion's death were… unsettling. For all our suspicions, no one ever took responsibility, and if Regulus is among them, he would have better grounds to assume than most. That may not excuse his indiscretions, but… if his concerns are valid, he may _have_ reason to fear for his safety. Or he may not. It is an unfortunate time to acknowledge we know very little about the details."

"If this were about resigning from his post alone, I would assume cowardice." Walburga had never been very happy with the lack of steel in her son, but she had also seen the alternative. She could live with it. "That is not what he said. He said they were being used. If that is true, it is a failure on Bellatrix's part not to disclose such a thing and walk away before she's disgraced. He has always been a perceptive child. He may know something she does not, but this consorting with traitors, he can be easily led. What if someone else is whispering in his ear?"

With a frown, Lucretia tipped her head, slightly. "That is, unfortunately, a possibility. I do expect he believes what he is saying, but whether it is true, and where that belief originated… we can only speculate, with our current information." She shook her head with a pressed expression. "At least he has been relatively discrete, rather than shouting it halfway across Iago. Can you imagine?"

She didn't want to. It was horrifying to have the sanctity of their home invaded, let alone others see. "Leaving cannot be considered discrete. It's hard to know if he's truthful or not; as you say, he becomes a statue over it. But should he be, it presents a more awkward and public problem."

"It does," Lucretia agreed. "One that is best dealt with sooner rather than later."

"Which is why I called everyone here," Walburga said. Not everyone - there was no need to drag the children into this - but everyone who mattered, and then Druella who would show up regardless. "I won't have more disorder in this house. The truth must out, and be dealt with swiftly. If Bellatrix is ignorant or has forgotten her duties to her own house, Cygnus needs to intervene before it tears another hole in our family fabric. Again!"

"Certainly." Lucretia's eyes were slightly strained, but the expression was otherwise composed. "I'm certain your brother will take this news with the grace of a manticore." She flattened her mouth wryly.

"He'll posture and complain, and if anyone has seen Regulus have a _complicated_ interaction, he'll undoubtedly claim this is all my doing." He'd complain to their parents, where their father would bluster and their mother would wail. Walburga had told Kreacher to see to it the couches were arranged appropriately in case her mother decided it was all too much for her in usual dramatic fashion. "He has never had time for quiet people. Regulus may never be the strongest child in a room, but he understands loyalty and devotion. Too much for his own good. But..." there was hesitation at the thought, let alone to speak it aloud. "The alternative to labeling it a grief-filled indiscretion is extinction. Whatever is decided must be sure."

"Grief-filled indiscretion, it is," Lucretia said, tightly.

Whether Cygnus could put their lineage above his own pride, at least there was one other person that did not want them dragged into obscurity. "I have extended an invitation to your father. His words will have more weight than my own, but I am glad that you came. When did you see him?"

"Regulus?" she clarified, but spoke on. "It was early in the summer - before Iago."

"After he returned from school?" Walburga pressed.

She nodded. "I'm not sure if he had returned home yet. You contacted me within a day, so it must have been close in timing."

So either he went straight to the coast to see Lucretia or he did so without informing anyone. She tried to ignore the sting of it, the sinking feeling of something falling through her fingers again, but to no avail. "The erratic behaviour is not helping," Walburga said. "But at least if he went to see you, he has some control of his faculties."

"I do think so. When I asked after his disappearing act, he'd said he needed time to think. Mentioning that his father was much the same was what seemed to distress him, but beyond that, we spoke of books we were reading until Ignatius returned and eventually directed the conversation to Quidditch. Nothing particularly treacherous."

"No," Walburga agreed. If anything, it made his behaviour seem even stranger. If he was grief-stricken, why would he not simply say so to his own mother? They could have simply left for a while, Dark Lords be damned, until he could find his own mind again. "By all accounts, Bellatrix does not seem unhappy with him. He's been taking out a girl in good standing. It must be extremely 'complicated', as I confess to finding him far more confusing in the last few months than he has been his entire existence. Perhaps you'll have more luck. You have a similar...temperament."

"I would be happy to speak with him again, if it would be helpful," Lucretia said with a nod.

"You may try," Walburga said. "He's in his room. I must wait for the rest to show up."

Lucretia nodded, but before she could even step away, the fireplace flashed bright green again to reveal Cygnus, straightening his robes as he shifted away. He always had a certain flair to his step, and no matter how neatly his robes were tailored, he was the sort of person who swished figuratively - with a wife who swished literally, much to Walburga's annoyance. Druella was close behind with her blonde hair pinned up just so - charmed to hide the impending grey, while Cygnus, at just 41, probably charmed more in his own to look more 'distinguished.' He had worn the same goatee since adolescence, with the aid of magic when he was still too young to grow his own. With how razor-clean the lines were, flaring out in a shaped moustache that separated from the trimmed hair on his chin, she wouldn't be surprised if it still was.

"What seems to be the problem?" he asked imperiously, holding out his hand to guide Druella for the last few steps as they moved away from the floo.

"Either your daughter is ignorant or disloyal, or my son is a coward or succumbing to the madness of grief," Walburga said, her tone sharp. She could not help but look sternly upon her brother. "We should find out which one of us isn't keeping our house in order."

"A ridiculous accusation!" Cygnus replied, fluster in his voice.

"Be quiet!" Walburga was not about to hear the whining start early. "You should wait for Father and Arcturus to arrive before attempting to defend your failures. You have no sympathy from me for incompetence. Lucretia, would you see them upstairs?"

"Of course," Lucretia said, paying no mind to the flushed irritation on their faces as she swept towards the stairs. She would lead them up to the drawing room, where the adults were to gather to sort their concerns - and there were several concerns to sort.

* * *

"The entire idea is _ludicrous._ "

It had not taken long for Cygnus to throw a strop. He was flapping his arms as if this would somehow make his point more valid. Anyone would think the man was four, not forty. That may have worked in a smaller company, but considering he was neither the father of the heir nor the patriarch of their house, anything he said was of secondary importance.

"Which part are you struggling with wrapping your mind around?" That Walburga did not roll her eyes at him was a moment of great restraint.

"Any of it!" Cygnus replied. "Never mind your son taking leave of his mind, have you? You're questioning the Dark Lord. He who was promised to raise wizard-kind to its rightful place and quash the threat of muggle incursion. Or has living next door to them for too long made you fond of the creatures?"

"No one is calling anyone a muggle-lover in this house," their mother said, looking worriedly from each to either.

Walburga herself could almost taste blood from biting her tongue. "The filth can skirmish and die as they always have! What care do I have of them? This is the last son of this house to bear the name, and if there is no real danger-"

"If, exactly!" Cygnus threw out. "I know he's what we're left with, but let us face facts, he's not what you'd call strong-willed, is he? He's looking for an excuse!"

As much as the idea of a strong-willed child was seen as preferable for someone who was the last of their line, Walburga had seen how badly that could go. There was something to be said for malleability.

"Then why drag Orion into it?" Walburga demanded. "A promise to end the muggle scourge is not the same as preserving our ways and traditions, let alone the children. Did you not think to inquire of this before letting your daughter get on her knees for him?"

"No more than you did with your son!" Cygnus snapped back.

"He had family there to take care of him!" Walburga said, taking a step towards her brother. "Family which has clearly done something to cause him not to go to them! Why does he think he has something to fear from your daughter?"

"The little darling has had a rough time of it this year," Druella butted in, as if she had any say in this at all. It was her own family complicit in this too – Evan had joined the Death Eaters at a similar time, and none of this had come up then. "He may just need a little time to come to his senses."

"As your middle child did?" Walburga seethed.

Druella recoiled, hand to her mouth in a mockery of a sob that was as fake as her glamour charms. Cygnus rose from his seat, red faced and mouth twisting. "DON'T TALK ABOUT HER!"

"You accused me of being a muggle-lover!" Walburga snarled, her throat tight. "It was not I who couldn't keep their daughter from breeding with one. You couldn't control your own house then! Why should I believe you can now?"

"You couldn't control your own heir! At least my daughter is doing something about the mudbloods and traitors!" Cygnus argued. "You merely created a traitor and a coward!"

"ENOUGH!" their father banged the table hard enough that sound echoed through the house. Both siblings took a step back. "There's been enough coddling and hand-holding of the children from both of you. Now you've made a mess of it all. Yes, grieving a father is terrible, but it's been half a year. He needs to toughen up, and participating in the Death Eaters, with Bellatrix's help, is going to be the best way to do that."

"Or he may die in the process," Walburga said, half-under her breath.

"Do you have that little faith in your own child?" her father demanded. "Is he that weak?"

Weak was not the word she would use. Regulus was an evaluator, as his father had been, and then acted on his findings. He was soft-spoken, and yes, she supposed, he was a little more sensitive than she would like. What Lucretia had said made some sense; if he was going to have a grieving indiscretion, she could begrudgingly admit responding to his traitor sibling out of some misguided attempt of family is not the worst thing he could have done. At least he did so privately, and if she knew that boy, the traitor had spat on his father's grave and proved there was nothing left of the ties that once bound them. Regulus was not a warrior. This is what her father meant by weakness.

"He is no weaker than his father was," Walburga responded after a moment, as it became apparent this was indeed in question.

"Then teach him how to duck some bricks, and he'll be fine," her father shrugged.

"An oversimplification," Arcturus cut in dryly, finally, though he was looking at her father rather than the group of them. "The boy plays Quidditch, does he not? I expect he dodges bricks better than most."

"Then what's the concern?" her father said, shrugging. "He was happy about it at Christmas, and no doubt will be happy enough about it again soon. He's just using what happened as an excuse, and you shouldn't let him. Loyalty is paramount."

"That, he does know," Walburga confirmed. "Disloyalty has never been his way."

"Unlike someone else I could name," Cygnus mumbled under his breath.

Walburga looked daggers at him. Did he forget who had started the fall of traitors in the children?

"Then stop coddling him, and he'll get past it," her father said. "Calling everyone together for this was completely unnecessary."

"There is a difference between coddling and considering the implications this could well have on our line," Arcturus cut back in, his tone as clipped as it was even. "The Dark Lord's cause is noble, but even without involvement, we have not been without a loss. This is not a question of his skill, but barreling into skirmishes is not the only way to be loyal."

"The nobility of it is what he questions," Walburga said, cutting her father off before he could respond. He gave her a thunderous look, but this was past the point where implications could do the speaking for themselves. "Not the muggles, he's not a traitor, but that of whether this Dark Lord is not doing what he promised and is instead using their pride in such a cause to his own ends."

"Blasphemous," she heard Cygnus mutter. "Borders on traitorous.."

"IF YOUR DAUGHTER HAS BEEN TAKING THE LIVES OF PUREBLOODS, WHAT DOES THAT MAKE HER?" Walburga yelled at him. There he was, muttering to himself like a sulking child. "Where are her loyalties? To her house and its continuance or her own agenda!"

"Of course she's loyal!" Druella said. "They all are, that's why they joined!"

"To you? To our house? Or her husband's house? Or the Dark Lord?" Walburga waved her off dismissively, this time. "Regulus has always gone to her before, but not now he has doubts! Why is that?"

"Bellatrix should be here!" Cygnus said, as if this were obvious and Walburga was a thick-headed child not to understand that. "She could stamp that out, and we could all get on with our day!"

"Stamp it out - certainly. But answer the question? Whatever the truth might be, I think we all know that wouldn't be a level-headed discussion," Lucretia said in a measured tone.

"What question is that?" Cygnus looked to her. "My daughter is devoted to her cause and her family. From what it sounds like, fear and ill company have gotten to Regulus, and he has it in his head that something is wrong with the Dark Lord. What's next, mudblood rights?"-

"No one else is talking about mudblood rights," Arcturus said in a firm, almost scolding tone. "We're discussing perseveration of our name and bloodline."

"You can't truly think he should leave," Cygnus said. "Think of the shame!"

"And you ought to think of our impending extinction. To suggest anyone in this room desires either of these scenarios is foolish," Arcturus countered, and this time, the scolding was more obvious. "To pull him rashly from the fight will do him no favours, but bringing in Bellatrix will only escalate the situation." With more finality, he met each of their eyes in turn to add, " _No one_ will speak of this to Bellatrix, nor Narcissa, until we have addressed these concerns to a satisfying end. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Father," Lucretia said, though it was evident in her tone that she agreed, and Arcturus was keeping his gaze on the opposing voices.

"Fine," Cygnus replied, with a tone that said it was very much not fine.

"You can't rule out the idea that he's gotten this idea from unsavoury elements if he's been spending time with them," her father said. "He's suggestable. It's rare for anyone of pure birth to get hurt. Surely if this twaddle were true, we'd see more of it."

"I have not ruled it out," Arcturus responded, coolly, "but if you are _wrong_ , it's at the cost of the last boy for _both_ of our branches. We cannot barrel forth into the wrong decision."

"What would you suggest then?" her father asked. "If you want to be careful, what is the careful way? To do nothing?"

"To use our brains rather than rashly drawing our conclusion within minutes of learning the problem," he replied curtly.

"The alternative is to believe a barely of age wizard acting questionably knows more than the children of every great pureblood house, including what remains of our own." There was clear irritation in her father's voice now, but it was true: however exceptionally bright she would consider her son to be, one person in that many was less plausible.

"Not to believe the alternative, but to consider," Arcturus corrected, evenly. "Should it be a flight of foolishness, we shall have plenty of time to set him back on his path. He has a more level head than most." A pointed look. "The chances of him blustering into disaster remain low for the moment."

"But rising by the minute!" Walburga interjected. "It would be difficult to investigate the claims without speaking to the girls, and any public investigation will bring accusations of betrayal! If there is something to be done, I would do it."

"It will be done, but it will be done carefully," Arcturus said, firmly. "If he has a true reason not to go to them, verification is essential."

"I would also be happy to speak with him," Lucretia said, smoothly, looking over to Walburga. "He has come to me and Ignatius, in the past."

"He's stubbornly refusing to elaborate for me," Walburga admitted. She couldn't ask either her brother or father to talk to him, because the more you yelled at him, the hastier the retreat. Cygnus was determined none of this was a blemish on his daughter and would push his own words regardless of the truth. "Perhaps he's found his tongue this morning."

"Perhaps so. Unless we have anything further to discuss, I will excuse myself now." Lucretia glanced around the group but landed on her father Arcturus - who nodded - and Walburga herself.

The idea of being left alone in the room to watch them back and forth over whether their own house should be in danger for the sake of manning up the heir or not wasn't ideal, but whatever sliver of hope Walburga had of someone understanding what Regulus meant when he wasn't truly saying silenced her desire to follow her. She too nodded. If anyone thought they could outscream her in her own house, she would happily correct their assumption.

* * *

Rapping three times on her nephew's door, Lucretia could barely contain a thin smile at the rather strict sign on his door - _Do not enter without the express permission of Regulus Arcturus Black_ \- and her heart twinged to think of her own little brother. Orion had not fashioned a sign, but the sentiment was no less the same.

From inside, she heard a quiet voice grant her entry, and when she peeked her head within she could see he was seated at his desk, eyes still turned to the window for a beat longer before he turned his attention towards her.

"Do you mind if I come in for a moment?" she asked, though she sincerely doubted he would deny her. Only a second later, her expectations were confirmed as he granted his permission, sounding about as downtrodden as he looked. There was a sour twist to his mouth for just a moment, but he seemed to set it to something more mild by the time she had closed the door.

"Your mother is worried about you," she began, but if anything, he grew more tense. He must have known she was troubled, but mentioning his living mother did not soften his mood any more than his deceased father. Walburga must have been quite harsh with him - a mood Lucretia knew well. "As am I. You've brought forth quite the stir."

His eyes were locked on the surface of the desk, and for a stretching moment, she thought he wasn't going to say anything at all. Moving to sit on the edge of his bed, she smoothed the skirt of her robes and folded her hands neatly, watching the back of his head patiently until he eventually turned in his chair to face her.

"The stir was not intentional."

"I did not expect it was." He still would not meet her eyes - something Lucretia was not entirely unaccustomed to, but she supposed that was the frustrating clamming Walburga had mentioned. Her cousin had never taken well to unstructured silences in a conversation - something the two of them had squabbled about more than once as young girls. She could imagine Orion had received an earful or more, over the years, but it must have worked out somehow, in the end.

"I didn't invite him to the house."

"I assumed as much." Regulus finally looked at her then, and she lifted her eyebrows slightly. "You must know these circumstances are very… confusing. Would you like an opportunity to explain yourself?" She hoped the 'without being shouted at' was sufficiently implied, inappropriate as it might have been too say it.

"The intention was not for it to all come out at once," he began, stiffly, but when she didn't say anything, he carried on to add, "I know what it must look like, but I'm not a blood traitor. I just want to protect our family - no matter who it is." He shook his head. "No one would admit responsibility for what happened to my father, but it is not a difficult conclusion to draw. Everyone knows, but no one wants to think about it."

Lucretia made a concentrated effort not to tense. Part of her wanted to nod - to admit she had been more than a little bit angry at the news, more than a little heartbroken and confused - but she kept her face impassive. She could not let her own pain encourage him in a dangerous direction. The intention was to determine where he was now.

"Your mother said that you have claimed the Dark Lord is merely 'using' purebloods. Who told you that?"

"No one told me," he said, more defensively than she expected. It might have shown on her face, because he seemed to filter some of the bite out of his tone when he continued. "It feels wrong, doesn't it?" A pause. "Maybe it doesn't, from the outside, but… how is throwing every dying line into a war actually preserving anything? The 'muggle threat' is being addressed, of course, but what is _actually_ being protected, compared to everything that is being damaged along the way? What if he…" An uncomfortable stop, and then, "...had an ulterior motive?"

"Like what?" she asked neutrally, not liking the unsettled feeling stirring beneath her skin.

He shook his head, then, with a strange expression.

"Is it just a feeling?" she tried to clarify, but he only frowned. Shutting down, it seemed. "Why haven't you said anything to Bellatrix?" Cygnus's eldest was not anyone Lucretia could imagine as a comfortable confidant, but it bore asking, nonetheless.

"There is no tolerance for questioning in the Death Eaters," he said, a little more distantly. "Not for anyone. She won't understand - and if I try to leave, they _will_ try to kill me. I know they will. I don't want that for any of you, but…"

"You do want to leave," she finished, and the muscles in his face tightened.

Lucretia was not certain what she expected from her nephew, but what she had gotten was not particularly comforting. Walburga's brother and father would not like it at all, and in truth, she was not sure she had anything more to work with than she had come with, besides a confirmation of what Walburga had said herself. If he wasn't hiding something behind those uncomfortable pauses, she would be incredibly surprised, but he was clearly feeling skittish if he expected they would kill him for questions.

It troubled her on some level to think that he was stuck in this Death Eater situation at all. She had suspected it might be so, with the way he had started acting in recent summers - but he had shouldered a great deal of responsibility when his brother left, so some part of her had wondered if it was the normal variety of 'overly stressed'. Pollux had claimed Regulus seemed 'happy' about it over the winter holidays, but that was not the descriptor she would have attributed to his demeanor then, either. Preserving their way of life was important, but the Dark Lord existed behind the curtain of every story about his followers' actions.

"No one is going to feel comfortable with a lack of evidence, you know," she said honestly.

"I know," he replied. "I did not intend to draw everyone's attention to these concerns before I could better defend them…"

"Everyone's attention is drawn now," she said, with some sympathy, but firm in tone. "I know that you are aware of how unwise it was to talk to a disowned sibling, especially under this roof, invited or not. It would be dangerous even if he had an ounce of subtlety, but it's no secret he does not. For that matter, your Uncle Cygnus is itching to tell Bellatrix about this indiscretion, and it is primarily my father's more prudent nature that is standing in the way of that. If your doubts are sincere, be more careful about where you entrust those doubts. Even entertaining your words as more than grief and madness is a risk, as you've rightly identified yourself." His eyes ducked down, but his face was twisted in more of a scowl than one of distress. A little troubling, in itself, but she could not very well soften the point - not with the clash of attitudes roaring downstairs.

What Lucretia wanted to tell him was that she did not want to see him hurt - that she agreed, his father's death alone was already too many deaths in this family to be acceptable. She wanted to tell him she did not think his breach with Sirius was as terrible as the majority would say, but what good would sentimentally do if it tipped him further towards this behaviour? Further towards a deadly accusation that may be no more than a fleeting feeling born of anger and grief?

Sentimentality was not their way. She did not want to think that the aggressive voices on Walburga's side of the family had any merit, but she knew they could be right, however sincere Regulus might be. He was not weak - that was their criticism of anyone who liked to think before acting - but he had no meat to his words. Regulus himself knew it, and she believed him when he said that he had not intended to say anything at this point. How long he would have waited, she did not know, but it no longer mattered.

"I suppose my mother did not mention anything about 'free to leave his room as he pleases'?"

"I'm afraid not," Lucretia responded, thinking that Walburga had a rare thing in a teenage Black who actually took that instruction to heart. Hopefully he could distract himself with his books, at least, until she cooled off. "But despite all this, should there be anything you need, do not hesitate to reach out to me and your Uncle Ignatius. You will get through this."

"Did he come today?" Regulus asked, and she shook her head.

"He had to work," she said.

"I see."

She watched the stone lines of her nephew's face and wondered if he was disappointed by that. Of course, her response was not untrue, but more than anything… even if Ignatius had been invited (he was not), Lucretia thought it better to spare him a side of her family she knew he did not care for. There had been tension in his own family when his niece married a Weasley, but the Prewetts had never been so intense as her own. Ignatius might keep a greater distance from his niece, compared to his twin nephews, but Lucretia knew he did not really understand just how cruel the responses could sometimes be in the House of Black. He was very fond of Regulus, and learning of the mess their youngest nephew was in from her family would be unnecessarily upsetting. Such a thing was better explained in isolation, if it must be at all…

"Take care of yourself," she said, rising from the edge of his bed. For the second time, Lucretia acknowledged that Walburga would not be pleased with the lack of progress, but perhaps he would be ready to share when he was a little less edgy. She would be surprised if anyone had spoken to him since he was last shouted at.

His expression was still distant when they said their goodbyes, and though she believed there was more to this than he would say, she felt no less unsettled.

* * *

The house emptied with little consensus on the issue.

Verification was required, but how to get verification was a muddy swamp none of them could see through. From the look on her brother's face, Walburga knew he had no intention of looking for any verification beyond wanting an excuse to tell Bellatrix and dismiss the whole idea. Why his intense devotion to only his child's point of view was considered strong but to present any such loyalty would make her seem weak was unfathomable, beyond the usual issue that the boys always got away with too much. She had been determined not to make that mistake, and it had still gone terribly.

Children were difficult creatures. They always desired either too much or not enough attention and could never make up their minds. Regulus had never been quite as terrible as she'd imagined when he was born. Never one to be foolish enough to descend into nostalgia, she felt it was wholly accurate that he was content to be given attention or inattention. He enjoyed doing the right thing and took pride in it.

But a child no longer, at eighteen, he was a man, even if he still had some growing to do by the looks of him. By this time next year, that child could be having one of his own. It seemed cruel not to warn him of the difficulties of it, how much time he would be required to invest, and if she were thinking of him correctly, how much heart. He had that. It was the only part she imagined was truly weak, this heartfulness, and not terribly common in boys from what she'd experienced. She had no idea where it had come from, but it wasn't the end of the world. It may be of some use.

Still, it was hard to imagine the young man digging his heels in was the same baby she'd been quite capable of taking anywhere with some confidence of a lack of fuss. It'd been a nice change of pace, from the confusion that had happened before with the first one. Regulus had always been reliable. You could leave him to his own devices, and he'd get on with doing what he was meant to be doing. To not trust a judgement now seemed foolish. He felt strongly enough about it that he would not back down, which may be the first spark she'd ever seen in him that she could relate to.

Aside from a general disdain for other people. Other people were terrible. Orion had also felt that way too, so this still felt different.

Lucretia had deemed it a sort of grief-induced madness. There were worse things to life than to be considered mad. As a young, opinionated woman who knew the sanctity of her lineage, she'd had the word slung at her more than once. It had never bothered her for long. She had cared very little of the opinions of others at that age.

The topmost landing of the house had been the children's domain for as long as there had been children. The front-facing left side had been her own room as a young woman, with her brothers on the back facing left and across on the right. The front-facing room went to the eldest, which in reflection, likely had more to do with her brother's desire to climb things as a child relegating him to the smaller back-facing bedroom with no escape route, despite being the heir. It was a problem she could have solved by doing the same when she'd had her own, but it had not occurred to her at the time that her eldest child would climb out a window onto the street.

(While she may have done it once or twice in her own youth, that had been extenuating circumstances of obvious set ups designed by her mother on what was or wasn't ladylike for a young woman. What did her mother think of Bellatrix, truly? No one in their right mind could consider her ladylike.)

The back bedroom now belonged to Regulus, and she rarely ventured into it. She could not remember the last time. It may have been so long that he was still able to be picked up and put into bed because his curiosity got the better of him after bedtime. She had never had to go through contraband or lock the door to keep him there; if she told him to go to his room, he'd remain there until he was given permission otherwise and was very unlikely to start any fires in the process. He would still be there now.

Walburga considered knocking. She didn't think she required his 'express permission', she was his mother, but he was old enough that he could be in a state of undress or could simply sit behind the door. He'd done that a few times as a child. However, she decided against it: yes, he was the heir to a great house, but he was _her_ son, and it was _her_ house, and it was by _her_ good grace he existed at all. She wasn't about to cow to that just because he'd reached adulthood. He was still her greatest contribution to the family, and with no one else stepping up, then or now, she wasn't about to let go of that.

"Do you believe you can now talk without almost swallowing your own tongue?" she asked.

A silent pause, and then a muffled response from within: "Yes."

Upon opening the door, he was still sitting on the bed with a book. You could hardly tell if he was being punished or not, because he'd likely just do that regardless.

"Everyone has left," Walburga told him.

He shut the book with a soft _thump_ , then looked up at her with a little nod.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Walburga asked.

His lips pressed to a line with a distant expression that didn't seem to be focusing closely on anything in particular. For a stretching beat, it seemed like he might be ignoring her, but before she could say anything, he responded, "In which respect?"

"I hope you have many children some day," Walburga said, "for both the sake of the line and so you, too, have to suffer the indignity of sullen teenagers. I don't believe you to be a liar. We agreed this is something that is none of the girls concern for now, but this consorting must end immediately. It's embarrassing for us and will only bring you pain."

"Embarrassment is not my intention," he said, still not looking at anything, and more stiffly, he added, "I am sorry you had to experience that."

"It is not me you're embarrassing, it's the entire house! Our legacy!" If this were about her own feelings, Walburga was fully capable of taking matters into her own hands. "I'm aware that things are 'complicated' for you. It's been a difficult time, but you were not the one that fractured this home! There are too many cracks in our foundations to take another blow. We have to protect ourselves. Do you understand me?"

Solemnly, he nodded. "That's what I want… to protect family."

"Then why did I have to hear about _ANY_ of this from an outsider?" Walburga demanded, taking a step forward.

With a rigid wince, he stared at the floor. "I was trying to find the right way to bring it up, but the information got away from me."

"How far away did it go to reach a traitor?" Walkburga asked.

"No further than that," he replied, quietly.

"You don't think that's far enough?" Walburga said. "You are not careless by nature! Do I no longer know my own son?"

"I made an error in judgement," he said to the floor, stiffly. "I will be more careful,"

"Your grandfather believes you to be cowardly and weak," Walburga said. He had to know what people were saying about him. "Are you either of those things?"

Finally, he looked up from the floor with a hardened expression. "No."

"Are you sure, child?" Walburga echoed. "You're soft in the heart. Dutiful, but I think there is some steel in there. You are _my_ son, and I may have shamed the family with an intolerable traitor and a child that stammers his way through confrontation, yet I don't want to believe I have ever given birth to a weakling. You have picked your fight with one of the most powerful wizards in the world. You will have to see it through, especially when my brother tells Bellatrix, because he never could keep his mouth shut. So I ask you again: are you a weakling or a coward?"

Tightening his expression and tone, Regulus held the gaze for a beat, then responded: "I'm not."

"As you wish, then," Walburga said. She could handle Cygnus and his daughter. She'd been using dark magic since before Cygnus drew his first breath, let alone his daughter. "Read later. Stop moping about in here, and go find something that will attest to your claims. I'm putting my trust in you. Do not disappoint me."

His posture loosened, slightly, and he nodded.

For a moment, it seemed he'd said all he intended to say, but before she could turn back for the door, he found his voice again: "To… clarify… does that mean I am permitted to leave?"

"Where did you want to go now?" Walburga asked.

He hesitated for a moment before answering. "You suggested I support the claims. If I am to investigate, I will likely need to look beyond the walls of the house."

"Then you should take some time to plan an investigation, should you not?" Away from unsavoury elements and his own reckless choices. "When you have a destination in mind, we can discuss it again."

"What if the destination is more… exploratory?" he asked, though his tone was once again more careful than firm. "Sometimes investigations unfold in unexpected ways, after all."

"If you knew where you wished to explore, you would know where you wanted to go, and would have answered my question," Walburga pointed out to him. "Make up your mind. Do you know where you're going or not?"

"I just mean…" A silent beat, a flattened mouth, then he shook his head. "Nevermind… I will let you know when I have a destination…"

"Yes. You will." Walburga swept out of the room. Whether he was still capable of keeping his word remained to be seen.

* * *

The Order meeting was in full swing by the time Gideon arrived. He'd have to ask Fabian to fill him in on what he'd missed; there'd been an attack on Saturday morning, but from the chatter with Doc last night, they weren't sure exactly _why_. It looked sloppy. Why would they get more sloppy? Were they trying to cover up something more subtle, draw their attention away, and if so, then what had they missed? Gideon could begrudgingly admit that while the Death Eaters were horrible and bigotted, they had some people halfway intelligent in their ranks that made things harder.

Something caught his eye in the corner of the room that broke him out of his musings. Emmeline was talking animatedly to someone with a familiar thatched blonde hair from the back. Rerouting from his brother, he made his way over the two of them and clapped down on Sturgis's shoulder. "You didn't tell me you were coming!" Gideon exclaimed.

"You didn't tell me you were a vigilante," Sturgis replied. Solid counter, frankly.

That explained one of the two absences the night before. It had only been himself, Benjy, Fabian, Emmeline, Doc, Lily, and Remus. Doc had explained the absence of their legally inclined members by the crackdown from Crouch since the attack, chasing up possible leads, looking for something they missed, but Sturgis had been an unusual absence. "This is why you missed the quest last night?" Gideon guessed.

Sturgis nodded. "Sorry I didn't say anything, but I don't think you can hold it against me on account of the, er, bigger secret you were keeping."

"No, I guess not," Gideon replied. That only left Regulus, who had gone from new to regular as clockwork every two weeks. He doubted Dumbledore had asked him without a recommendation from one of the others, but he'd ask around and see if anyone knew why he hadn't shown up. "Have you met everyone else?"

"He knows most people," Emmeline laughed.

"Not Ed," Gideon replied, since Edgar was the first person he could see.

"I already know him through Ernie," Sturgis replied. That was Ed's younger brother, if memory served. "We sorted out the transportation for their wedding last year. That was fun and games."

"What about the kids?" Gideon asked.

"Who are you calling kids?" Emmeline bristled. "I'm about to turn twenty."

"Which means you're currently nineten," Gideon said. "A teenager, therefore, a kid."

"He's only two years older than me," Emmeline grumbled.

"I thought it was three," Gideon asked.

"Three years apart at school, because the birthday months," Sturgis said. "My brother was in her year, so what I didn't see myself, I caught wind of."

Gideon could believe it. He'd had only one year as a prefect with their young Order Gryffindors, and he could still remember the beginnings of the reign of terror. He was surprised McGonagall hadn't retired after them, but she was made of stern stuff.

"Hang on to your valuables around Dung," Gideon warned. "Other than that, welcome to the Order of the Phoenix, try not to get killed."

"I'll do my best?" Sturgis asked, or it least sounded like he was asking.

Gideon clapped him on the back, checking to see where everyone was so he could see if any progress had been made. No sign of Dorcas or Alice; both would probably know what was going on more than most. No Dung either, but it would depend on whether he'd been allowed in. However, he did see Sirius, so he could at least ask if he knew anything about the lack of his brother's appearance.

"Do you have a minute?" Gideon asked.

Sirius shrugged. "Why?"

"I was wondering if everything was all right with your brother," Gideon asked.

Something flashed across Sirius's face, but he simply shrugged again. "I think you're forgetting what disowned means, mate."

"No, I know." It seemed to be a bit of a case by case basis when purebloods disowned their own people, because Molly had gotten a reputation for being a bit of a black sheep for marrying Arthur, but their Uncle Ignatius didn't seem all that bothered by it. Molly even gave one of the kids one of his names. "But you don't keep an eye on things, just in case?"

"Why?"

"I'm not sure if Remus said anything," Gideon said. "But this is the first meet up he's missed after being invited. It seems like he would send a note if he wasn't going, but I haven't heard anything."

Sirius rolled his eyes, but which part of what he said was eye-roll worthy was up for debate. "He's probably grounded."

"Grounded," Gidoen echoed.

"Means you can't go outside?" Sirius drawled.

"I know what the term means," Gideon said. "But he's eighteen?"

Sirius scoffed. "Do you think that matters if Mum says he's not going anywhere? He near wets himself any time she raises her voice."

That seemed like a bit of an exaggeration. "You think she's angry about something?"

Sirius glanced behind him, towards what looked like his usual group talking intensely about something. Perhaps they'd noticed something everyone hadn't. They were good at that. "I spoke to him briefly yesterday, and Mum slithered round the corner and saw me. Surprised you didn't hear in the Ministry, she was screeching loud enough."

"Who was?"

They both gave a twitch as James relocated himself to the table, pulling himself onto it.

"My dear old mum," Sirius replied. "Her continuing efforts to make the sonorous charm obsolete."

"Oh yeah," James nodded, rapidly. "Remember that time you didn't go back on the train, and she screamed the courtyard down?"

"Yes," Sirius said, crinkling his nose.

"You could hear what she was saying clear as day in the tower," James said.

"It takes time to build up an immunity to it," Sirius replied. "I had sixteen years."

"Why are we talking about your mum?" James asked.

"We weren't," Sirius said.

"I was just asking if there could be a reason why Regulus, who has become a bit of a regular, might not have shown up," Gideon said.

"But isn't he your mum's precious ickle baby?" James asked. "Why would she scream at him?"

"Because she knows I saw him," Sirius said, after a beat.

"A couple of months ago?" James asked. "Shit."

"Yesterday," Sirius mumbled.

"What do you mean, yesterday?" James asked. He must have remembered when he saw him yesterday, because he suddenly pulled at Sirius's arm. "Sorry, Gid, gotta have a quick natter, you know, family stuff."

With the abrupt exit, Gideon was left to wonder if that's all it was. He could ask their uncle; in fact, he decided he'd call there at lunchtime tomorrow and see if he could get any details on what was going on before he owled Regulus himself and stepped into Black family drama.

When he caught up with Fabian, he had barely gotten two words out before Sirius stormed out and slammed the door hard enough the walls shook.

"What was that about?" Fabian asked.

"Kids being kids," Gideon said. "Tell me one of you has some actual news so I didn't traipse over here just to get away from the teenage drama."

"But you're glad you did get away from the teenage drama," Benjy said. He wasn't wrong on that front.

"I took notes," Fabian said.

"Me too," Benjy jumped in. "But nothing doing, not that I can tell. Seems like there should be more to it, but no one can see why it is yet."

"I'll take a gander at yours," Gideon said to his brother, though his expectation of finding anything new was plummeting by the minute. "At least I have a chance at understanding your penmanship, even if I can't discern anything new."

"It's the lack of fatalities that bother me," Benjy said.

"The Order got there quickly," Gideon replied, scanning over the parchment.

"But it was mostly half-bloods that showed up injured," Benjy said. "A handful of injuries for muggleborns but not enough for a targeted attack. Even a couple of the pureblooded kids showed up with some scratches, according to Pomfrey."

"Maybe the half-bloods were the point," Fabian said. "Get in line or look how easily we can get to you."

"Maybe," Gideon said. It still felt like they were looking at stray pieces of a puzzle without knowing what the picture was yet. "But I have a feeling something else is going on, and we're just not seeing it yet."


	11. A Campaign of Truthful Misinformation

Note: Warning for brief physical violence.

* * *

 **Chapter 11: A Campaign of Truthful Misinformation**

* * *

Doors and floors now separated Regulus and his mother, but the accusatory words still thumped against the inside of his skull, even as the sun peeked delicately through his window the next morning.

Weak and cowardly. Of course they would think that, but it had stung no less. What they expected him to find as proof remained unclear. As far as Regulus was concerned, his father's death ought to be enough of an offense, even if the Death Eaters would not admit their sloppy execution of a bombing had not warned or subtly cleared the area of their own supporters. They were terrorizing many but solving very few actual problems, and at the front of the fight, dwindling pureblood lines were the ones at risk in the best scenarios, dying in the worst. Whatever argument was laid out, that was undeniably the opposite of preservation.

Frustration burned, but even so, Regulus had known the strength of his family's argument before he ever stepped foot in that seaside cave. His choices affected every one of them, and if anyone - within the Death Eaters, or even just Society - found out how he felt, the shame would be as inescapable as it was suffocating. One traitor was unfortunate, two was a pattern, but three was a threat. He had a responsibility to his line, his legacy, and no one else could fulfill it...or rather, no one else who could fulfill it _would_ fulfill it, as Sirius had made clear. Like always, his brother was better at riling up their mother and leaving Regulus to clean up the mess than he was at actually following through with a problem - but bitterness offered no familiar distraction today.

The weight pressed heavy on his shoulders, flattening him against the bed as he shifted from his side to his back. Like some morning swarm, his mind buzzed with his mother's sharp words, yet his responsibility to the line did not change his responsibility to the task he had set out to do - and in direct opposition, the two paths felt more divided than ever. What could convince them, short of a confession from the Dark Lord - or his own death at the hands of the cause? The latter was proof he could easily provide, but turning them from the Dark Lord still came at the price of the line, and even that was no guarantee if his own uncle and grandfather were convinced he was just a cowardly weakling for having his doubts.

Perhaps it oughtn't feel like a betrayal when he could have predicted their skeptical reactions, but it felt like one, no less. Regulus knew now that he could not live up to the example Bellatrix was setting, and for all his stubborn perseverance these past two years, he had feared it from the start - fearing that he would not become like her, and fearing that he would. Stepping into the Dark Lord's service was meant to reassure them all, to draw an occasional grant of approval. It was meant to prove that he could be everything Sirius should have been, everything he himself was supposed to be, everything that any of them could want in an heir to make up for the disastrous edge they had been teetering on.

In the end, he had failed to be Bellatrix; he had failed to be what they wanted from Sirius; and he had even failed to be himself, properly, if his mother's scolding was anything to go by.

Each expectation twisted and clashed. He did not know how to be what they all wanted so badly. Perhaps on some level, his concerns _were_ cowardly, but falling into line was no longer an option. Blind trust had been scraped from his eyes like scales, and he did not like what he saw - not from his shadowy leader nor the devoted followers, not from his skeptical family and certainly not within himself.

Regulus rolled into his side again and lifted his eyes to the window, spotting a bird flitter downwards, perhaps towards the garden below. In his mind, he pictured mounting his broom and zooming off some place where none of these problems could claw from each side. Such a thing sounded better and better each day, and each day, he reminded himself that he couldn't go now. The time for outrunning the problem had passed. Now was the time for outsmarting it - or at least outmaneuvering. How he was meant to do that was just as elusive as how he could acquire proof that would convince every member of his family to agree on any of this, but it was no less necessary.

The concerns had been spiraling in his mind, as of late, cutting down his hope that he could make this work, but spiraling wasn't going to fix anything. Whatever the others might think, he was not a weak child, and he refused to be insulted by his own family.

Until word spread to the Death Eaters directly, he was bound to the coming tasks, and it unnerved him, knowing that his luck would run out, soon enough. Death Eaters could only avoid their hand in death for so long, as he understood it.

Later that morning, Regulus found his mother striding out of the drawing room with a purpose he was not privy to, but she did not look like she wanted to be asked.

Weaving confidence into his tone, he straightened to ask, "I would like to go to Diagon Alley, and perhaps Knockturn too, while I am there. Do you have any objections?"

"Do you intend to do anything I would object to?" his mother asked.

He shook his head and replied "no," which was only partially untrue. She might not appreciate the motivation behind the purchases he was seeking out, but poisons, dark objects, and books were certainly not problematic in themselves.

"And you'll do what, should an undesirable situation fall upon you?" his mother prompted.

Her words sounded very much like a protection against the loopholes that had already formed in his mind, but he was careful not to let the realisation show on his face.

"I will leave that situation," he replied, supposing 'unpleasant situation' was meant to be code for 'Sirius.'

"Immediately," his mother added. "Go then, if you must."

Regulus ducked his head in a nod and took a quick exit before she thought better of it. Within minutes, Regulus had grabbed a bag for carrying and gold for purchasing, then apparated to his destination without further ceremony.

He stopped first in Knockturn Alley, his hood pulled low over his face. Anywhere else, such shrouding would look as suspicious as it was conspicuous, but walking openly was arguably less common, commanding even more attention than it might normally. The last dregs of summer heat drew more patrons into the open than usual, but Regulus had never minded a thorough cooling charm if it meant more cover.

Finding a purveyor of poisons who didn't care about tracking Regulus's identity had been easier here than it was in Diagon, where records and accountability were favoured more often than not. Finding a substance that could make him ill without doing any permanent damage may serve well as a means for avoidance, should an unpleasant task fall upon him; he was going to quickly run out of excuses if he had to rely on his own word alone. The last thing he needed was to draw the attention of a certain peer who was as shrewd as he was gifted in potions, which was to say very. Asking after Death Eater tasks felt secure enough, but asking after anti-Death Eater tasks seemed an unnecessary risk, even if it was Severus.

The wizard he bought his poison from had an unsettling smile, framed by an unnaturally emaciated chin. In truth, his aesthetic was not so unlike the garb of a Death Eater, if the bony masks could smile. Although there was nothing trustworthy in his mannerisms at all, perhaps it had been better that the wizard's hood was pulled down too low to ever make eye contact. Seeing a face would probably only make it worse.

Along with the poison, he tucked away an antidote. Should complications arise, at least he would have a contingency plan to solve it himself.

With the Knockturn Alley leg of his trip attended to, Regulus made his way to Flourish and Blott's for the less pressing but more enjoyable task of book-hunting. No book he could find in Diagon Alley was likely to be particularly helpful with the Horcruxes, but he was thumbing through the defensive magic section when heard someone speaking.

"Regulus?" came a voice to one side, where Gideon Prewett was giving him a scrutinising look.

Regulus met his eyes and paused for a beat. At least the Prewetts were not on the 'banned' list. He felt a touch of awkwardness at having missed their most recent puzzle meetup, but chatting with a Prewett required no additional loopholes, even if his mother were to question him, and that was a small comfort. At least Prewetts were not on the 'banned associations' list. "Gideon. Good morning."

"Hello," Gideon replied. "Everything alright?"

Batting off the crushing temptation to say 'things are terrible, actually,' Regulus instead resolved to hold his face in a neutral expression.

"Of course," he said in what he hoped was a normal tone. The more he focused on it, the harder it was to tell, but it had felt even enough.

What truly made the moment worse was that, even as he gave into the urge to duck his attention back down to the book in his hand, he knew he probably looked as evasive as he felt. If only Occlumency could cure mannerisms.

There was a beat of silence before Gideon replied. "Was that a reflexive 'of course' or a real one? I'm sorry, we're not at the point I know by tone."

The answer had been purposeful, if not truthful - neither reflexive nor real. The wisest choice seemed to be capitalising on the question to better smother a reality he didn't want to talk about, much less advertise. Claiming the 'of course' had been real was the clearest way out, yet instead, Regulus lifted his shoulder in a slight shrug and responded, "At the risk of being semantic, saying 'everything' is alright is probably an exaggeration for anyone."

"If the good outweighs the bad, then you round up," Gideon reasoned. "I was laying some groundwork on whether or not you were planning on going to the next meet or not, but asking directly seemed discourteous when you were doing something else."

Shifting slightly, Regulus closed the book with a soft thump and looked back to Gideon. The good did not presently outweigh the bad, but he supposed he should stop letting his manners suffer for it.

"I would like to try," he replied, honestly. "Things are a bit complicated at the moment, but I do enjoy them."

"If you decide you want to, just owl me, and I'll send the address as quickly as I can," Gideon offered. "But I can at least tell people you weren't ill so no one worries."

"If you have the address now, that would be preferable to owling," Regulus said, a bit quickly. Even if his mother had no reason to be upset about speaking to Gideon Prewett, he did not want to risk an interrogation if she intercepted.

"I have the current one, but it may change. I'll write it down - I realise how stupid this sounds in a book shop, but do you have parchment? Mine caught fire at the Ministry this morning," Gideon asked.

Regulus nodded, then set the book back on the shelf to rifle through his bag. He did not have much in the way of parchment, but he had brought a small amount for notes, in case anything struck him for research purposes while he was out. After neatly tearing a square from the nearest corner, he handed it to Gideon.

"Dare I ask why yours caught fire?"

"Thanks," Gideon replied, taking out his quill in response. "Mine was a casualty of ward work. I'm glad I didn't test it with my fingers. This is in Muggle London, so I recommend disillusionment if you're apparating."

A wise plan, indeed, though he never tended to have much need for it. His own house merely disillusioned the space around the doorstep, and he had never experienced much need for a roam around Muggle London beyond that. He wondered, to some degree, why it had never been suggested within the Death Eaters, but perhaps they would scoff at the idea. No one would be able to see the frightening cloak and mask combination, after all. For Regulus, personally, being attacked by someone he could not see at all sounded far more frightening.

Shaking off the thought, he nodded and settled his bag again. "Wards can be tricky like that."

"Luckily, so am I," Gideon replied with a smile. "Or not so lucky, if I were the type to go breaking them instead of creating them."

Regulus flicked a little smile in return, then nodded. Seeing as he was among those who were expected to break wards, it probably ought to have carried a sting, but creation was far more intriguing.

"You work with wards, then? I suppose I've never asked," Regulus replied.

"Experimental magic. We test a variety of new spells, but deadly protection charms seem to be all the rage right now," Gideon said. "Hence the fires."

Interest sparked brighter. He had yet to try proper spell-crafting, but modification struck a similar beat, and that much, he had dabbled in - subtle alarms, mostly, playing off the wards his father had started to teach him, just last Christmas. Orion Black had not often made time for other people, nor had he ever seemed to particularly enjoy stooping to teach. The door to the study had been closed to them, more often than not, but that day, he had dedicated an afternoon to ward instruction, bringing Regulus into that sacred space. It was painful to think that it had been both the first and the last, but he tried to stamp out that jab.

In the end, such things made access to the Restricted Section simpler, but technically speaking, there were regulations on experimental magic of any sort. Conversation with an official Experimental Charms Ministry worker was probably not the time to admit that particular hobby, however tempting - even if it was just Gideon.

"A fascinating venture," Regulus settled.

"Keeps me busy," Gideon said. "It's how I know a lot of the people - we run across each other at the Ministry. Except for the younger lot, of course."

"I imagine it does keep a person busy. Experimental magic is intriguing. My father was more interested in the ward side of it, specifically, but both aspects have interesting depth," Regulus said with a small pang. Thinking back, his father's wards were not _always_ what one would call 'legal,' either, but they had always seemed exceptionally effective - strengthening the safety of their home, more importantly than anything he might've freelanced on the side to keep busy.

Shaking off the train of thought, he brought himself back. "But to your point, I can see how that mix might happen."

"I was very sorry to hear about what happened with your father," Gideon replied. "Murder can shake an entire family. It's why people are so intent on protecting their loved ones by any means necessary. My sister's in nerves about her sons."

Murder - an accusation that still settled uncomfortably in his thoughts. The Death Eaters' carelessness had taken his father's life in a slaughter of civilians; even if he could not possibly have been an intended target, that did not make the attack itself less intentional. Gideon's sister had married a Weasley, putting her children at a predictable risk, but he suspected that predictable risk would do nothing to ease it, were anything to happen.

Acknowledging any of that in a public space - even a book shop - was tiptoeing on risky ground, so he took a beat to collect his thoughts and direct from the particular details of socially ostracized siblings and Death Eater murders.

"I suppose it's a matter of one doing what can be done, given the situation," Regulus said.

"I always try my best to do anything I can to help." Gideon nodded. "Still, it's a nice break from the darkness to hole up at the table and work on a solvable problem. I hope you decide to come."

"I hope to make it," Regulus replied with a nod.

At the end of the aisle, another familiar face came into view, poking around from the section on enchantments, and Regulus felt his chest seize nervously.

"Ah, Regulus. I thought I heard your voice," Evan said, smoothly. When his eyes flicked to Gideon, and back to Regulus again, he lifted his brow in an unspoken question.

There was no reason to be nervous, talking to a Prewett, as Regulus had reminded himself multiple times already. Paranoia whispered that it seemed more like familial spying than pure coincidence, but that probably wasn't fair to Evan. Evan was no stranger to this shop either, even if showing up at this precise moment felt highly specific.

When Regulus did not respond quickly enough, Evan added, "I do hope I'm not interrupting?"

"No, of course not." Regulus glanced at Gideon, then back to Evan. "We were just concluding a discussion on wards and experimental charms."

"I did not realise you were friendly," Evan said with a light tone, and though the tone was carefully non-accusatory, Regulus felt the exacting focus all too keenly.

"We crossed paths earlier this summer when I was visiting my Aunt Lucretia and Uncle Ignatius," Regulus replied. "As it turns out, we have some interests in common, just as you and I do."

"How delightful," Evan said, though he appeared more curious than delighted.

"Not to mention an aunt and uncle in common," Gideon said, flatly. "Always nice to get fresh eyes on a problem."

"Is there a problem?" Evan lifted his brow again, looking to Gideon.

"Most people have at least one," Gideon replied.

Sensing that the conversation was in danger of devolving in some unspecified direction that he probably did not want it to go, Regulus cut in again: "And there are sufficient eyes on all of them."

Looking to Gideon, Regulus tipped his head. "Best of luck with those wards." To Evan, "And with your translations, as well."

"I was hoping to speak with you this afternoon?" Evan asked, and Regulus felt another pang.

"I should be heading back," Regulus replied, thinking that no book in the shop felt worth enduring further interaction for the moment. "Perhaps another time?"

"Another time, then," Evan replied, though he looked for a moment like he wanted to say something else.

Regulus felt slightly guilty for blowing him off, but even if there wasn't a dreadfully awkward social interaction to escape, his mother would probably require an update before he went anywhere else - and if Evan wasn't spying at either of their mother's request, then this was not the place to explain it.

In truth, Regulus was not sure what the 'right place' would be, but with the way life liked to escalate without him, the conversation would probably force itself upon him soon enough.

* * *

A letter arrived later that week, not long after supper. He was settled in the drawing room with a book on protection spell variations when the soft tap of a beak on glass drew his attention to the window - and to the letter in question.

Having unfolded the unfamiliar script, he saw that it was from Abigail. She had been at school no more than a week, which did not seem like enough time for much to have happened, but the same amount of time had passed in London, and more than one upset had risen up around him. Of course, none of those happenings seemed appropriate to share at the moment, certainly not through owl, but it had been a thoughtful and slightly unexpected sentiment, nonetheless.

There was a new Defense teacher this year, as always: a witch named Cecile Ironbark, who seemed to know what she was doing but did not seem to enjoy doing it for children. Her introduction had involved such detail on her professional duelling past that Abigail reported it a wonder that Professor Ironbark had come at all. Regulus thought it still sounded like an improvement over Professor Striker the previous year, whose name set up false expectations when all the man had opted to do was read to them out of their textbooks - something they ought to have been doing on their own anyway.

He was reading her invitation to the upcoming Hogsmeade weekend next month when he felt a telltale burn triggering on his arm.

The image of a skull and serpent would be twisting beneath his sleeve; he knew as much without looking. Mouth tightening, he neatly folded the letter. Some part of him thought he should just ignore it, stand his refusal without compromise, write back to Abigail as if nothing had happened and deal with the consequences, but he had no evidence to show his family yet. His mother had sounded no more willing to help him at the end than she had been at the start, at least not until he could convince the group of them that he wasn't just being a coward…

Regulus was not a coward, but his stomach turned at the uncertainty of what their task would be tonight. His eyes flicked over to where his mother sat with a cup of tea, listening to the WWN. For just a moment, he pictured his father in the chair across from her, flipping through a book or perhaps the Prophet. More than likely, he would be no more pleased about the current situation than she was, and logically, a second disapproving parent ought to be worse, but logic did little to stop the sting.

To answer the Dark Lord's summoning was probably foolish, now that his family knew, and Sirius would be furious if he found out, but open rebellion was the way to guarantee everything would crash around him - the only way to guarantee that the past few months would be for nothing.

Upstairs, a vial of poison and a vial of its antidote were tucked in his Death Eater robes - the backup plan, should tonight's instructions hit a breaking point. He was not certain what that breaking point would be (and he ignored Sirius's disapproving criticism at the back of his mind for it), but better to be prepared.

When he approached his mother, he tried not to stand silent for too long, even though his tongue felt thick in his mouth.

"The Dark Lord is calling," he said, as evenly as he could manage.

"He's doing so quietly," his mother remarked, without looking up.

"Quietly, but no less emphatically," he said in return, pulling up his sleeve enough to show a serpent writhing roughly two inches from his wrist.

His mother looked at his arm, then without warning, encircled his wrist and pulled his arm closer to her. "That isn't always there," she said, more statement than question.

"The mark is red when it isn't activated," he said, carefully. How surreal it was to have to explain the Dark Lord's immensely unpleasant brand after two years of his mother taking little notice of the details. Then again, he had been allowed to leave freely even if the Dark Lord wasn't involved, just a month before, so he knew he ought to stop being surprised by the recent interrogations. "It burns and turns dark when he summons."

"A summons that cannot be ignored because it's painful." She indicated his arm. "Why Bellatrix so enjoys his company is becoming clearer by the moment. Do you want to go?"

"Do I want to participate? Not particularly," he replied, insides clenching slightly from the honesty. Lying about it would only confuse the point he had already put so much risk into making, but he hated not knowing how she would react. "Do I want to draw negative attention on our family before I can properly show you why I don't want to participate? Not particularly, either. In light of that, I recognise that I probably should."

There was a moment of silence before she let go of his arm. "A reminder to work quickly, then."

Regulus nodded, taking a step back as his sleeve fell back to his wrist. "I will."

* * *

When Regulus and the other Death Eaters arrived in Tinworth that night, the town was quiet and still. All of the windows along the street were darkened with hints of sleep, and Regulus wished - not for the first time - that he was at home with darkened windows, too.

"Don't be an idiot," Barty said, but he was striding past Regulus to put a wand between Mulciber and the front door. "If you just bust in like a cretin, they have time to call the Aurors."

"You would know all about the Aurors, wouldn't you?" Mulciber sniggered.

Regulus could not see Barty's eyes beneath the mask, but he guessed he was rolling them. "Is knowledge meant to be insulting now?"

"Right now isn't a good time," Regulus cut in, holding his own wand tight in his fingers.

"You're right," Mulciber said. "We have some scum to scrub."

Escalation had not been Regulus's intention, but intention didn't matter. By the time they had dispelled the protective enchantments and crept inside, Regulus had concluded that maybe it had been a great time for arguing. However unpleasant, the feeling of anxiety driving him to get out of view from the street had probably still been better than the anxiety settling in his stomach, now that they were inside.

"Let's find the wand and be on our way," Regulus said, trying to find a set of stairs through the restrictive slots of his mask. The darkness only made it worse, but risking a light did not seem worth it yet.

"Sounds boring."

"You want to tell the Dark Lord his tasks are boring?" Regulus said.

The remark sounded more respectful to their overlord than Regulus was feeling, at the moment, but unfortunately, Mulciber did not take the bait to curb his attitude.

"Were you not listening to the 'make sure this stays quiet' part of the instructions? You can roll around in the dust, if you'd like. I'm going to go cover our tracks before we even make them," Mulciber said, patting the back of Regulus's head

Swatting the hand away, Regulus pressed his mouth to a line and watched Mulciber disappear up the darkened staircase. To his other side side, Barty was looking from Regulus to the staircase and back again.

"I will go keep an eye on him - backup, in case this wizard can put his wand where his braggart mouth is, even from his sleep," Barty said, punctuated by a less annoying (and less patronising) pat on the shoulder.

As Barty disappeared up the stairs, Regulus wanted to think that 'covering their tracks' would involve a sudden skill in obliviation that either Mulciber or Barty had not seen fit to mention up to this point, but the sinking feeling in his stomach knew that was a ridiculous thought. Less than a year ago, it would have felt important to believe that to the last minute, but now, his mind would not cooperate at all.

Slipping a hand into a pocket in his cloak, Regulus felt the vial of poison - useless right now, he knew. Pulling it out in the middle of a mission would just run the risk of getting caught in Death Eater garb. If he went through with it, better to do so before getting into the thick of it…

But whatever the future was going to bring, it made no difference tonight. Upstairs, a wizard - one whose only discernible offense was owning an object that the Dark Lord thought he might want - was probably about to get murdered, and a sudden, panicky guilt gripped at his chest. He ought to be looking for the object of their mission as quickly as possible - and not just for the ease of a quick escape. From the moment their task had been given, a relentless curiosity remained. This wand the Dark Lord sought was one that the possessing wizard claimed to be Godric Gryffindor's. Many people would like to claim such things if they could get away with it, but though their task was explained to be linked to the feud between Gryffindor and Slytherin, Regulus had a lingering feeling that the Dark Lord wanted it for another reason.

(The same reason he had acquired Slytherin's emerald-crested locket, and it had nothing to do with a feud.)

His fingers wanted to thumb through cabinets and skim over walls, but like some brutal hook, the guilt had dug into his mind, pulling his attention upward with a firm yank. He could manage no more than a brief glance around the room before he found his feet scaling the stairs, too.

A door was cracked halfway down the hallway, and Regulus's heart started thrumming as he approached. To say anything at all was probably stupid - waiting and planning for Mulciber's father to come along as their obliviator was not the most efficient route to victory, but it was dancing on the tip of his tongue as he pushed the door open further.

"I had an…" A man was sitting up in the bed, pointing his wand at the woman next to him. She was clawing at her own throat, a look of panic flashing on her face as she writhed from the shadows into the moonlight.

With a _thump, thump, thump_ , his heart hammered in his chest and head alike. His own throat felt like it was closing up, breath coming shorter and shorter with each choked gasp the woman gave, and for a moment, Regulus thought he could feel hands clawing at his own neck again.

Even when the woman went still and the man turned a swifter lethal spell on himself, the beating did not stop. More than his legs below him, Regulus felt as though it was his shaky grip on the doorknob that kept him on his feet, but the others in the room took no notice.

"You're right, Crouch. That was more satisfying," Mulciber said, flourishing his wand before tucking it away.

Barty was standing across the room with his arms folded across his chest. " _Don't_ say my name while we are in these masks, idiot," he said in a scolding tone.

"They're dead. Who are they going to tell?"

Barty's tone was still tight when he continued, but less so than it initially was. "To the acutal point - better for the records to show a traumatic murder suicide than to have anyone sniffing around for stolen objects. There will be no dark mark in the air tonight." He turned to face Regulus, then. "Did you find the wand already?"

His limbs felt as though they had been petrified, but Regulus somehow managed to shake his head.

"Not yet." His mouth felt dry and sticky; he could not possibly sound normal, could he? The room felt darker, narrower, but it had to be his imagination. "I wanted to see what was going on in here."

"Jealous that you missed out on the fun, huh? I told you rummaging was boring," Mulciber said in a cocky tone that made Regulus stomach lurch again. "Haven't seen any photographs to suggest more people, but I'll check the other rooms, make sure there aren't any stragglers."

"Regulus and I will keep looking for the wand," Barty said, walking towards Regulus and tugging him by the sleeve as he moved past.

Despite Regulus's suspicions, his legs did not completely drop out from under him when his hand let the doorknob loose. More than anything, he wanted to find somewhere to curl up alone, regain his faculties, muster control over his nerves again before having to interact with the friend who knew him best, but there was no hope of managing that. The moment Regulus leaned a steadying shoulder against the hallway wall, Barty cocked his head.

"Are you okay?" Barty asked, taking a step toward him.

"I've been feeling a bit dizzy, lately," Regulus replied, and it was not entirely a lie, whatever the trigger had been.

"Is it serious? If so, you should see a Healer. You could probably get Selwyn to give you something."

Even if Selwyn weren't a Death Eater, he did not have the best bedside manner - certainly not someone Regulus would consider an ideal source of help, regardless. He shook his head. "I will manage."

Barty nodded, glancing first at the stairway downstairs but seemed to settle on the room across the hall to investigate next.

They split their search, two rooms at a time, and Regulus was on his second when he came upon a study of sorts. From the moment he walked into the room, there was no doubt that the wizard who lived here _did_ believe he had something special in his possession.

Within a glass case, the wand was displayed, dampened by the shadows - and below, a plaque labeling it as Godric Gryffindor's wand. Laying eyes on it, a different sort of franticness prickled over Regulus's skin. More than likely, the wand was a fake. What were the chances of such a thing surfacing suddenly in 1979? For that matter, what were the chances that it would fall into the possession of some ordinary person? Yet rumours of founding objects were not so uncommon that it was impossible, either. Whether or not the wand was genuine, it spoke to the eerie possibility that the locket was not the only Horcrux in existence - or at the least, was not the only one planned. Though the thought had vaguely crossed his mind, he had not wanted to believe it. The Dark Lord was certainly dark enough to manage split his soul multiple times, but the task of finding more than one felt so daunting that Regulus had hoped, on some level, that he was just being paranoid.

Paranoia would offer him no consolation, today, because it seemed far more logical than the Dark Lord caring _that much_ about a founders feud. Unless there was some unknown, house-based curse at play, the vague reasoning sounded more like an excuse to blindly swallow than anything else.

For a moment, Regulus considered sticking the wand in his pocket and putting a fake in its place, but the thought unraveled as quickly as it had spun. The wand itself held no significance to Regulus if it wasn't a Horcrux yet, and if the transfiguration was discovered by the Dark Lord, suspicion would rain down. Even if he told Barty and Mulciber, using the excuse of 'covering their tracks' would just draw attention to decoys, and the last thing he wanted was the Dark Lord getting paranoid about decoy switches…

"Is that it?" Barty asked as he entered the room, stepping up behind Regulus, then around to look.

"The plaque says so," Regulus replied, thoughts jarring back into the moment as he lifted his wand. "It could have protective enchantments or curses on it to deter thievery."

"How lucky that we brought someone well-versed in both." Barty bumped his shoulder. "Have at it, then."

Nodding, Regulus waved a detection spell over the case, but no sign of curses or enchantments lit the glass.

"It appears this wizard is both mouthier and less paranoid than you are," Barty said wryly as he opened the door to the case and carefully pulled out the wand.

No reaction to touch - the wand was safe, too. "This exact situation ought to be evidence enough on the merits of paranoia."

"Only if you're on the wrong side," Barty quipped back lightly.

The words had been posed as a joke, but as they regrouped with Mulciber for their departure, Regulus was glad that the mask meant he didn't have to try to muster a smile.

* * *

When Regulus returned home that night, he aparated up to his room just long enough to toss his mask on the bed before aparating back down to the first floor. A peek into the drawing room confirmed that his mother was still sitting up - possibly waiting for confirmation of his return.

He pulled his hood back, letting it drape over his shoulders before he spoke, stepping in just a little past the doorway. "I've returned."

"So I see," his mother replied. "Were you expecting not to?"

His eyes remained fixed on the floor. Safety was not a guarantee, but rather than saying so, Regulus steadied his tone and replied, "You wished to know when I left, so I thought you might wish to know when I came back."

"Does it always take so long?" his mother replied.

"Not always, but I would not call it unusual," he replied.

"Do you always look as if someone has been practicing curses on you, or is this related to your current distaste?" she asked.

A difficult question to answer when he did not know how he typically looked, but it was as good an opening as any to make his point…

"A witch and wizard were killed tonight," he said, stiffly. "Not because of allegiances, but because there was something he wanted, and that option was considered superior to simply obliviating them."

There was a moment of silence. "You have never enjoyed destruction without cause," his mother said, tone more wary than accusatory. "But does your own opinion hold so little weight?"

"No one sought an alternative, but generally speaking, it does not appear to change much." He shook his head. "I understand that one must be… mindful of questioning, but it cannot always be bad."

"You are my son. The last of a great, ancient house. If anyone should be able to voice themselves, it's you." There was a bristle to her voice now. "If you want to convince others you're weak, there is no faster way than to fear speaking your mind among the less powerful."

Regulus could not recall a single instance in which his mother had ever encouraged him to speak out against the commonly accepted perspective, but she sounded firm about it, so it was probably a matter of what was on his mind, more than the actual action of speaking out.

"The Death Eaters do not take well to differences in perspective," Regulus said, his own voice growing tense, but he forced himself to look at her. "Disinterest in continuing to serve the Dark Lord falls under that category. I would rather keep it quiet until the situation is under control. I just… thought you ought to know, in light of your previous questions."

"Were you told, directly, to kill them?" his mother asked.

"We were told to take care of it - cover it up - keep it quiet," he replied, keeping the hesitance out of his tone. "The delivery was ambiguous, but the intent was clear."

"And there was no discernible reason," his mother went on. "They weren't undesirable elements staining our world?"

Regulus shook his head. "They were not identified as problematic so much as inconvenient - or perhaps annoying for their boast of rare magical objects, but that is not a punishable crime."

His mother gave a noise of derision. "The magical population is more polluted and weak by the day, but killing them? Your cousin has nothing to say of this?"

Bellatrix would not like him speaking on this subject to his mother, but lying would completely invalidate his point - a temporary solution, at best, and a step backwards.

"She would say that if the Dark Lord wills it, then it is correct, and not my place to question it," he replied carefully, feeling a thrum of stress starting to beat in his chest again but holding his expression as still as a stone.

There was a moment of silence. "It is not the place of a noble house to question the destruction of magical life, however common that magic may be? 'Because he said so' is about the level of intelligence I've come to expect from her mother, but I truly thought Bellatrix had some strength in her not to become enthralled and besotted enough to lose all her senses."

Regulus was unclear on what he was supposed to say to that. Agreement felt like a betrayal to his cousin (and to a lesser degree, his Aunt Druella), but if nothing else, that seemed to be the point that his mother was fixating on in his support. Perhaps the details could be fine-tuned later, but he did not dare suggest a correction to his mother in the moment. It would only confuse the point more…

Silently, he watched her for just a beat, then dipped his chin in a little nod.

"Was there something else or do you just want to stand there for the rest of the night?" his mother asked.

Keeping the cringe off of his face, Regulus paused just a beat longer before speaking, jamming as much confidence into the tone as he could manage.

"Just a request to continue strengthening the arguments with more examples before drawing out the confrontation with Bellatrix," he began, hoping it did not sound as sticky with nerves as he felt. "I expect that is your intention, but I would like to clarify in order to approach the situation appropriately."

"Do you believe evidence will sway your cousin's mind?" his mother asked.

"Possibly not," Regulus admitted, still feeling as if Bellatrix was going to somehow sense that he had spoken against her, however true it might be. Taking such a stance was a risk: If his mother changed her mind, such opinions could easily brand him a traitor too, but so long as he was immersed in the water, he would have to keep swimming. Forcing himself to keep his eyes on her, he continued, "However, if the rest of the family is involved, I would rather have the evidence settled before access to that evidence goes away."

"Then hope your uncle knows when to stay quiet," his mother said.

"I do." Uncomfortably, Regulus pursed lips, and though he had done little more than speak and search tonight, he could feel exhaustion setting in. He paused only a moment longer before taking a step back towards the frame of the drawing room door. "Goodnight."

"Morning, by now," his mother said.

Again, Regulus nodded, then disappeared from the room, shutting the door behind him. He could feel the night buzzing at the back of his mind. The pressing possibility of other Horcruxes lingered his thoughts, but more intrusive was the sight of a witch suffocating in her bed, flashing in and out of his mind with a lake of clawing Inferi.

Downstairs in the kitchen cupboard, they kept their own stash of potions, not unlike the cupboard he had found at Andromeda's. Regulus did not like the prospect of his mother noticing he had relied on a Dreamless Sleep potion, but even a subtle suggestion of weakness still weighed better than a night alone with his thoughts.

Those thoughts were not a battle he wanted to pick, tonight.

At the foot of the cupboard, Kreacher was already sleeping when Regulus softly creaked the door open. Since the cave, Kreacher had continued to roam about the house, cleaning and caring for their home as he always did, but Regulus hesitated to draw attention to the fact that Kreacher being alive was not information that his mother ought to spread. On one hand, house-elves were rarely a topic of conversation, even within the family. He had trouble imagining a scenario in which his mother would specifically reference Kreacher in everyday exchanges. On the other hand… Christmas would be coming in just a few months, bringing with it a family gathering in the ancestral home. Trying to explain why Kreacher could not wander about during that time involved information that he did not want to share with anyone, much less his mother.

All he had to do was resolve this conflict and end the war before Christmas.

Completely reasonable expectations, as always.

With a soft sigh, he grabbed a bottle of Dreamless Sleep, and carefully closed the cupboard door again.

* * *

That morning, Sirius came out to find two creatures mocked and belittled by a supposedly civilised society having a natter at their dining table. It sounded like the beginnings of a joke. A blood traitor, a ginger, and a werewolf walk into a bar. There were a lot stranger things that passed through the Leaky than that; he'd even seen Aberforth storm through the other day. Someone must have really gotten on his goat.

Remus tipped his mug at him. "You're going out on Saturday, aren't you?"

"Yep," Sirius confirmed, squeezing past the table to go see if the kettle was still hot enough or if he'd have to boil it again. "I have a date with the Order surveillance schedule."

"We're going to need extra eyes in Tinworth," Gideon called in. "There was a murder down there, but no Dark Mark, so either it's not Death Eater related or they don't want it known it was Death Eater related."

"There's plenty of tosspots out there that aren't Death Eaters," Sirius said, deflating at the cold tin. He tapped his wand on it, then stood back against the arch frame. "If I'm related to them, chance is in your favour they're a total prick but not necessarily a Death Eater."

"You're related to me," Gideon said.

"Tangentially." Sirius waved off the comment. "On a family tree I'm unlikely to be on anymore."

Gideon cocked his head to one side. "Regulus."

It was probably going to cause more trouble than it was worth to point out his reluctant Death Eater status for the purposes of winning the conversation, wasn't it? "Don't let the politeness fool you. He's a vindictive snot when he wants to be."

"So are you," Gideon said.

"I would never deny my prickish nature," Sirius said. "He's not as bad as some of them, but he's definitely a bit of a tosser."

"That somehow seems like both a compliment and an insult to him," Gideon said.

"Welcome to my world," Remus said.

"The whole polite and soft thing is just a routine he puts on. If you'd ever seen him dig his heels in on anything, you'd know he's almost as bad as me," Sirius told him, glancing back to the steaming kettle. "Remus, back me up here."

"Why am I backing you up?" Remus asked, as if he couldn't remember half the year where they'd waged 'war of the prefects' between themselves.

" _Sixth year,_ " Sirius said, emphatically.

"Oh," Remus said, brows knitting. "Yes, well. No one was on their best behaviour then."

"I'm always on my best behaviour," Sirius told him, proudly.

Remus looked at him blankly. "That's the most horrifying thing you've ever said to me."

"So far," Sirius countered. They were pranksters, after all. Remus gave as good as he got. What was his life that he was stuck between polite people who weren't really polite at all, and were almost interesting enough to be worth knowing? Scratch that; Remus definitely had a furry leg up there.

"That reminds me," Gideon said. "I saw him a couple of days ago. Regulus, I mean."

"I'm surprised the leash goes that far," Sirius said.

Gideon rolled his eyes. "Actually, he did seem a touch more skittish than usual, but I wondered if that was more about Evan Rosier wandering in while we were talking."

"Rosier can't argue about a good pureblooded lad like you," Sirius said, giving a wide and just as fake smile.

"Didn't we have him down as a Death Eater?" Gideon asked.

"No confirmation," Remus said. "But given the rest of the group, it wouldn't be a shock if he was."

"Given Bellatrix, it wouldn't be a surprise if he was." Bloody Rosiers. "He was probably snooping. Showing signs of independent thought gets you stalked in that house."

"Do you really think so?" Gideon asked. He looked perturbed. "I did ask him to the next meet up. Will that be a problem?"

"You'd have to ask him," Sirius told him. "I wouldn't hold your breath on a real answer."

"I had been considering going to Dorcas's for the meet if we have to shift it again, since Tinworth will probably be under closer surveillance, regardless of the lack of Dark Mark," Gideon said. "I don't fancy being the one to lead a Death Eater into her house. It all depends."

Sirius snorted hard enough that he coughed. Oh, this was going to be fun when it all came out, wasn't it? Thanks a bunch, Reg, as usual dumping him in the thick of it while trying to keep himself out of it. His ability to make trouble for himself (and Sirius himself) while trying to stay out of trouble was as impressive as ever. "So, Moody is losing his mind over the idea something could be Death Eater related but they don't want people to know?"

"You know what he's like," Gideon replied. "But that was a terrible conversational dodge. I did expect better."

"I haven't had coffee yet," Sirius grumbled. "But no, I'd say steer clear of any space you'd feel wary of - like a muggleborn's."

"What about a blood traitor?" Gideon asked.

"Which one?" Sirius asked.

"Here. I suggested it as the back up since Remus was Dedalus's partner," Gideon said. "I wasn't sure about whether that would work, given you were publicly involved recently, and I'm not sure where you stand. However, it would have felt weird going to Dorcas's house without her. Unless you're worried about someone finding out you live here, then of course we can change."

Sirius shrugged. He didn't know who knew where they lived, but they warded to the nines anyway, and most would arrive through apparition. Unless James put in a surprise visit or Lily decided to show up, it wasn't likely to make much of a difference. "I'm not worried."

"As long as you're still going out," Remus said.

"I said I was," Sirius replied.

Remus added. "And you're not seen leaving."

"Or Lily arriving," Sirius said.

"I don't think she's going," Remus said. "I think she's doing surveillance too."

"That's settled, then?" Gideon asked. "I've already given some heads up about the change, so I need to owl otherwise."

"Unless James decides to come round, this place is still anonymous enough." It may not stay that way if Rosier is tailing him, but he'd cross that bridge when they got to it. Sirius wasn't sure how he felt about his brother's encroaching on not only his friends, but his living space, but he guessed he had a little time to think about it. "But look out for who's snooping on him, just in case."

"I'll keep it in mind," Gideon said. "Are there people to watch out for?"

"Snape," Sirius said automatically. "Avery. Mulciber. Wilkes. If that lot aren't Death Eaters, I'll eat this kettle."

"Probably any family members," Remus said.

"You wouldn't have trouble finding my mum following him into somewhere he shouldn't be," Sirius said, grimly. Behind him, the kettle whistled as if on cue. "Just follow the sound of the shrieks."

"Is it really that bad?" Gideon asked.

Spoken like someone who had only ever seen his dear old mum in passing.

"I scarpered when I was sixteen." Sirius tapped his lobe. "My ears are still ringing."

* * *

As the week came to a close just a few days later, Regulus positioned himself at his aunt and uncle's house for the late afternoon, anticipating Gideon's puzzle group that night. After a week of compounding stress, it felt jarringly normal to simply visit with his uncle, pretending as though everything was Quite Normal. Judging by his uncle's demeanour, it was hard to even tell if Aunt Lucretia had even told him about the ordeal with Sirius, but perhaps he was better at hiding it than Regulus was giving him credit for.

Leading into the close of day, Regulus and his uncle had launched so thoroughly into a discussion of the Montrose Magpies' current Quidditch league domination (much to their shared delight) that he nearly lost track of the time, noticing with only 30 minutes to spare.

Untangling himself from his aunt and uncle's house was much simpler than leaving his own house, these days. After Regulus specified that he would be spending time with Gideon and Fabian, his uncle had brightened noticeably, and however inscrutable his Aunt Lucretia might be, she seemed more curious than anything. With luck, his mother would not press questions if he was out late, but if she did, at least the path of questions would lead to a neutral source, rather than a forbidden, suspiciously hidden outing.

The address Gideon had given him was really more of a description of an apparition point: 'Serendipity Hall, down the street, red building, number 21'. He hoped very much that he looked like he knew where he was going, lest one of the Muggles try to talk to him. It was a quiet night, but the fewer lies he had to deliver to his mother, the better.

The whole process was far more imprecise than he would have liked, but in the end, he found the line of red brick flats at the corner of a crossroads, just across the street from what looked like a small cafe on one corner, a guitar shop on another, and a bright white terrace house on the third, accented with red flowers of some sort.

When Regulus tested the door from the street, it was already unlocked. The whole building looked as though it was relatively new, if he were to guess by the clean colour of the walls, so that was positive, at least. Inside, there was a set of stairs leading up to the next level, and by the time he reached the top, his mind was turning over with curiosity about which of the group members lived there. No one had spoken much about their residences - in fact, this was the first time he had attended a meeting that had not occurred in a public place - but if anything, the location was a tip that they were unlikely to run around a larger area to solve the night's riddle.

Checking his pocket watch, Regulus saw that he was still five minutes early by the time he reached the front door, and that dispelled some small amount of stress as he knocked with three firm raps.

On the other side was Emmeline Vance, tucking a curled lock of hair behind her ear as she opened the door for him.

"Good evening," he said as he stepped inside. Down the hallway, he could see what looked like Gideon, so far, sitting on a sofa.

"You decided to come," Vance stated by way of greetings. "We weren't sure. Come in to the living room; there's no room to swing a cat here."

Regulus nodded, slightly, and followed her further in. Somehow, it felt more awkward to step into someone's home than it did to meet up at a table somewhere in Hogsmeade, but there were far more interesting things to look at in a home, so the awkwardness felt worth it, in that respect. When they reached the living room, he saw a few books scattered on a table by the sofas, along with what looked to be the same odd black box he had seen in Andromeda's living room. On the wall was a cross stitch with... pointed expletives about Death Eaters. Strange decor, and a strange medium for it, but he tried not to look at it too long.

"Dorcas is famous for her cross stitch," Vance said, tapping him on the forearm twice before pulling out a mismatched chair at the table and sitting down.

Gideon gave him a tight smile in greeting. "Hi."

Regulus looked over to Gideon and nodded, still trying to keep from eyeing what he assumed to be Vance's flat. Given her friendship with his brother, the message of the cross stitch was not very surprising, but it only made him more curious - and awkward, within the confines of his own mind, but certainly curious, as well. He did not much like Death Eaters himself, these days, but it seemed quite bold to simply slap it on the wall like that. The puzzle group had not struck him as the trouble-making sorts, at least not at first glance, but there were some strong opinions among them - that had certainly become evident.

"Hello," he replied, waving on his train of thought for the moment. "Who is facilitating this time?"

"Technically, Dedalus, but since he lives in Tinworth, his partner." Gideon said. "Going somewhere with swarms of Aurors didn't seem smart."

"Remus," Vance supplied. "I think he's taken down most of the protections, since no one has shown up cursed, but if you feel something crawl on you, check it isn't one of the strays he's decided to pick up."

Regulus paused, then flicked his eyes between Vance and Gideon. If it was Remus Lupin's flat, not Vance's… and Lupin lived with…

As if on cue, one of the doors in the hallway opened forcibly, and Sirius stepped out backwards.

"...going now," he said, in response to Lupin who followed him out into the hallway.

"You said that an hour ago," Lupin said, his voice strained.

"You gave him the real start time?" Vance called up. "Well, that was silly. Always give at least an hour, you know this."

Sirius then caught sight of him and rolled his eyes dramatically. "If you were going to trade me in for the younger model, you could at least tell me that."

Stiffening, Regulus looked over at his brother and steeled his face against the sudden rush of alarm. The address Gideon had provided did not match what Sirius had written over the summer, but it was not highly specific, either, and now did not seem the time to inquire. Of course, Sirius's flat was the one place Regulus was explicitly not supposed to be, regardless of intention, and he had a feeling that his mother would not consider 'he wasn't there for most of the activity' to be a sufficient excuse, after that surprise drop in at the house...

"Sirius, will you just go?" Lupin raised his voice in response.

"I _am_ going!" For a moment, Sirius shifted weight back and forth which directly contradicted that statement. Finally, he drew his wand, tapped on the door next to the one he'd left, and took a few steps back.

"I thought you had a date tonight," Vance called back. "Aren't you late?"

"If they can't handle my casual relationship with time-keeping, it would never have worked." With that, Sirius opened the door. "Behave yourselves. No raves, no orgies, no severe property destruction."

There was a crack of apparition the second he went out the door. Lupin made a strangled noise and headed back to the group. "I'm sorry," he said, face reddening. "I have no excuse."

"The trouble with being punctual," Gideon sighed. "We're still three down."

Regulus looked at Gideon, tempted to point out that a little bit of warning about it being his brother's flat would have been nice. The realisation had been stressful, regardless of whether the omission had been intentional, but with the others around, he did not particularly want to draw attention to his own lingering discomfort, either.

"An ongoing struggle," Regulus agreed, shaking his head and biting his tongue against any pointed commentary. The recipient it ought to be pointed at had already left, after all. "But I prefer it over being late."

"Can someone convince Benjy of that?" Gideon said, already looking a little sheepish. "He'll be late to his own funeral."

Remus leaned over and lowered his voice, "Sorry. We didn't think you were coming, or we would have chanced ourselves at the Prewetts. Or I'd have told him to go earlier. "

"It's not your fault he can't follow a schedule," Regulus replied, dryly, though he had filtered the bite out of his tone for Lupin's sake. Lupin did sound very apologetic, considering Sirius was the one making the rude remarks. Glancing back at Gideon, he added, "Though if Aunt Lucretia or Uncle Ignatius inquire, I would like to request a strategic omission of the location."

"We don't talk about specifics with people who aren't invited." Gideon nodded.

"Sometimes, secrets can be fun," Vance supplied. "Depending on the secret."

"Besides which, you would not have wanted to come to our place," Gideon added. "Apparently, if we were ever hit by an exploding curse, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference."

"We could have used mine," Vance added. "Everyone skulks in Knockturn. No one would be any the wiser. Although I suppose that would be the same problem, different gender."

Certainly, any friend of Sirius's was automatically cause for disapproval, but he suspected Sirius was still categorised as markedly worse, if he were to bring it to a panel of family members. Vance's name itself wasn't particularly problematic - and for that matter, Regulus did not think she really seemed the sort to live in Knockturn, of all places, with a put together appearance and a refined manner of speech.

With that being said, she _did_ choose to hang out with a hoard of Gryffindors on purpose. Perhaps there were some errors in judgement, after all.

"You could have set us up in the Department of Mysteries," Gideon was pointing out.

Vance shrugged. "But then I would have had to have Doc obliviate you all, which just seems rude. This is fine for a smaller group."

"The Department of Mysteries must be a fascinating pursuit," Regulus remarked, thinking that it was arguably the only fascinating thing that the Ministry had going for it. Even more than Gideon's experimental charms, though that was interesting, too. "Obliviation would be such a waste."

"Yes," Vance replied, grinning wide. "It is. They barely take anyone, and I'm not getting fired. I suspect they use actual fire."

There was a sound of footsteps outside, running quickly up the stairs. The door burst open to reveal Fabian Prewett and Benjy Fenwick, laughing like loons.

"Sorry we're late," Fenwick said. "Apparated into the wrong hallway."

Given the pattern, Regulus suspected it was not the only factor in their delayed timing, but he opted not to say as much aloud.

"You said three more," Regulus said, looking back to Gideon. "Is Diggle the only one left?"

"No Dedalus tonight. The lawfully inclined among us are working again," Gideon said. "Sturgis should be here. He missed the last one, but last I checked, was coming here."

So it was not just Diggle's home that was unavailable in Tinworth, but Diggle himself. Another wave of guilt splashed up against Regulus's thoughts. The Tinworth couple had not been anyone Regulus had known - that much, he had been certain of - yet the effect must have spread not only to the Aurors, but to Diggle as a lawyer, as well.

Fortunately, he was not left to his thoughts for long. Sturgis showed up only a few minutes later, and Lupin took charge of facilitating the night's puzzle - boggarts, this time, though Regulus was relieved to remain in the realm of theory, rather than actually broadcasting their fears to each other. A terrible time, that would have been.

A different sort of guilt was settling in as the evening was coming to a close. In truth, he was hoping that his mother would start to relax her questions with his recent good behaviour, but he was not accustomed to the recovery process, and he could not tell how successfully he was recovering his freedom when she was not keen to explain her perceptions, from moment to moment.

He had said his goodbyes a moment before, and he was nearly to the front door when he noticed it - writing carved into the wood of one of the side doors that had definitely not been there when he had first passed through the entry hallway. It was the door next to the door Sirius had come out of earlier, and when he skimmed the message, his face immediately flattened to a scowl.

' _Do Not Enter Without the Express Permission of Sirius Orion Black.'_

From behind him, Regulus heard Gideon's voice: "That's a little much. We wouldn't intrude on someone's privacy."

Regulus rolled his eyes. "He is merely being childish about the fact that I found it irritating when _he_ would come into _my_ room without permission, warning, or invitation."

"The universal signs of a Gryffindor sibling." Gideon tapped his hand on his shoulder twice. "I have two. At least they could torture each other, but I did see a marked increase of released gnomes and ashwinder eggs in my bags when Molly went to school."

Somehow, the suffocating drama of having a Gryffindor sibling sounded like less of a big deal when Gideon said it. Some small amount of annoyance deflated, but if they were talking about strange, annoying things that siblings had done, Regulus had no shortage of those.

"Sirius transfigured my charms textbook over the winter holidays of my second year." Regulus crinkled his nose and shook his head. "But when I asked him about it, he couldn't remember what he transfigured it into, so I spent the better part of an afternoon casting _Finite_ on various things in the house until our mother noticed and asked what I was doing… She made Sirius look for it instead, but he never found it, so our parents had to buy me a new charms textbook, anyway."

Gideon snorted. "So somewhere in your house is a charms textbook? It sounds like one of our puzzles."

"We have a _lot_ of artifacts in our house, not even including everyday objects," Regulus said, emphatically. "I _still_ don't know where it is, but I suppose it's in the house somewhere, yes."

"You have to admit that if it was done on purpose, it would be an ideal way to hide something," Gideon replied. "Every house has its quirks, but my estimation, given experience, has been that Gryffindors are 'I do', Ravenclaws are 'I think', Hufflepuffs are 'I believe', and Slytherins are 'I will'. Which places both Gryffindor and Slytherin in 'active', with Gryffindor as chaos and Slytherin as order, with Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw as 'cerebral', Hufflepuff as order and Ravenclaw chaotic. My conclusions based on my own experimentation is Gryffindors want a reaction, and you feed the beast by having one. However, Gryffindors who can focus their attention and curb the usual lack of impulse control are creative problem solvers. It's why Fabian and myself get along better as adults; when he has an idea, instead of plowing on without consequence, I can pull it into practicality. When I'm frustrated and at a dead end, even if some of the solutions sound insane, it forces me out of my own perspective. That said, if he took one of my books and didn't know where it was to the point I'd have to buy another knowing it was just out of reach, I'd still hex him into the middle of next week. I know an Unspeakable. I can make it happen."

Regulus nodded. Silently, he had to admit he had never really given much thought to the categorizations of the other houses, but 'I will' felt accurate to his own house experiences. At the moment, sheer force of will seemed to be holding together his plans more than anything. In the case of Gryffindors, however, he _had_ thought about how the whole mass of them thrived on reactions… Of course even when he tried to ignore them - whether it was Sirius or Potter or one of their other annoying friends - it seemed like they just kept pushing harder, but perhaps that rare 'impulse control' was the distinction between bearable and unbearable behavior. He was confident that neither Sirius nor Potter had it, at the very least.

"Sirius has indicated that he would prefer I just hex him, but spite prevents me from honouring his wishes," Regulus said, forcing a more casual tone than he felt.

"It does make it harder if you want to 'win'. I suppose it's a lot easier to heal a hex than to look at why you needed hexing the first place," Gideon supposed. "Understanding action to consequence isn't exactly their best either."

"I can agree to that," Regulus said - in respect to both points, as it was.

"If you want to disregard it, I don't think you'll find any arguments here." Gideon looked back towards the living room. "Just leave nothing deadly in there. I'm try not to facilitate murder whenever possible."

Regulus flicked his eyes towards the door again with equal parts hesitation and flared curiosity. Sirius's carved in 'sign' had been a haphazard attempt at mockery, and perhaps it was a little petty to respond, but 'no arguments here' sounded close enough to permission.

After sparing a quick look back at Gideon, then back to the door again, he lifted his wand to carve a neat line through the 'Not'.

"I have no intention of murdering him," Regulus said, feeling a little twinge that he kept carefully from his face as he cracked the door open. "Just ambiguously investigating."

Gideon snorted. "I'm the last person to quash curiosity."

Peeking inside, Regulus found that Sirius's room here at his flat was not very different at all from the room he still had at home. The colour scheme was red and black, rather than red and gold, but there were still pictures of scandalous Muggle 'motorbikes' (as Sirius had called them) plastered on the wall, photographs, something that looked a little bit like a weird black wireless (but with more knobs and windows), shoes abandoned by the door… and his clothes were strewn on the bookcases while the books were strewn on the floor.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," Regulus concluded as he closed the door again, feeling a pang that Sirius had simply planted himself elsewhere. He did not know what else he would have expected, or what he had wanted to see, if not more of the same. The pang did not care much for logic, so he squashed it down. "However, curiosity has been satisfied for the moment."

"I don't think I have the stomach to go into my brother's bedroom. I'm pretty sure there's new organisms growing in there." Gideon gave a shudder. "I'm sorry if this was too awkward."

Regulus nodded, slightly. "It's all a bit… complicated right now." He wondered how many times he would end up saying that. "These meetings are at least an enjoyable variety of complicated, so I would like to continue attending, but it's probably better to avoid this particular location. My family finds anything Sirius-related to be very upsetting, and I would like to avoid worsening the situation."

"Does it upset you?" Gideon asked. "I don't really know what the rules are."

"Upsetting them upsets me," Regulus replied.

"I'm just trying to find the line between not talking about him around you and whether it's more to do with physical proximity due to...familial discord?" Gideon put his hands flat and made a weighing motion. "I just want to know how to maximise your comfort level."

"I'm irritated with him at the moment," Regulus began, thinking that his brother ought to have at least _tried_ another option before showing up at the house and throwing all of Regulus's plans to the wolves- "but less angry than I have been in recent years. It seems like he's _trying_ to be helpful, I suppose." Regulus shook his head and flicked his eyes over to the rest of the group, but they were still gathered around the table, talking. Looking back to Gideon, he added, "So as things are right now, familial discord is the primary concern. Technically speaking, the expectation is a complete lack of acknowledgement that he ever existed."

"I got the feeling that wasn't quite where you were, so I wanted to check." Gideon nodded. "But I'm happy to make adjustments to locale and not mention anything if asked. You're a member, so your needs have priority. Is there anything else you want to avoid?"

"I don't know," Regulus said, dropping his eyes awkwardly as a frown pulled down the corners of his mouth.

Gideon looked at for a moment, then shrugged. "If you figure something out, just ask for a word, and we can talk about it. It isn't now or never."

Regulus nodded, his eyes still lowered. He was tempted to look over at the table-round group again, but he didn't. Were he to avoid what he was supposed to avoid, he wouldn't be here at all, regardless of whether it was Sirius's flat.

"I should be going now," Regulus said, making himself look up again. "Thank you for the invitation, as always."

"You should think of somewhere you're comfortable too," Gideon said, taking a couple of strides to the door and opening it. "For when you win."

Flicking a little smile, he looked up and nodded again. "I will work on that."

Stepping through the door, he spared a final polite goodbye before disapparating with a soft crack.

When he materialised again, he was in Cornwall, rather than London. The original plan had been to return home when the puzzle night came to a close, heightening the benefit of ambiguity, but now that the time had come, he settled that coming full circle with his aunt and uncle would make for a cleaner sequence. No need for his aunt to follow up with his mother about his safe return, and less complicated explanation if his mother were to reach out to his aunt. Truthfully, Regulus would not be surprised at either scenario, given the current state of his family's trust in him. Accurate though their assumptions about his unsupervised time might be, it was no less inconvenient.

When Regulus returned back to his aunt and uncle's, nearly three hours had passed since he'd left. Neither of them had readied themselves for bed, though he knew they must plan to soon.

"I see you've returned safely," his aunt stated mildly. It was difficult to read her expression, but she didn't seem unhappy. Still curious, perhaps.

His Uncle Ignatius smiled. "Fun night?"

"Puzzles and riddles, mostly," he replied, "so yes."

"An excellent choice. Gideon has mentioned having a little group of puzzle enthusiasts. I'm glad you're getting along." His uncle nodded. "Will you be staying tonight?"

"No, I'll go home." Regulus felt a little jolt of nervousness, hearing his uncle mention the group, but he supposed it shouldn't alarm him. Gideon had been here borrowing a book from them, earlier in the summer. He had made no secret of it. There was no hint of suspicion in that connection, but it still took a beat to press down the feeling. "I just wanted to drop back in to say goodnight first."

"We enjoyed your visit," his aunt replied. "A relaxing evening was due. Let us know if you need anything."

Regulus could not tell how pointed that comment was, or whether it was merely polite. Neither of their faces changed at all when she said it. Regulus dipped his head into a small nod, and with a final exchange of goodbyes for the night, excused himself to the fireplace. After igniting a fire with his wand and sprinkling a dash of floo powder, Regulus disappeared into the flash of green flames.


	12. Drastic Lengths for Desperate Times

**Chapter 12: Drastic Lengths for Desperate Times**

* * *

Barely a week had passed since the last mission Regulus had been tasked with, yet the mark had triggered its familiar burn once again. An unmistakable feeling of dread had been tightening inside of him, twisting in knots for the past half-hour - a discomfort that was only growing worse.

"You missed out last time," Mulciber had reminded him with a grin after his father had explained their goal for the night: The torture of a muggleborn Ministry official. This time, of course, their target would be considered deserving by his mother's criteria, but that fact did nothing to ease the distaste of knowing he could not simply busy himself with another facet of the mission.

That distaste was hurtling rapidly towards anxiety, knowing there was no preparation required, tonight - no room for plans to wriggle out of active participation.

Regulus could not say if Mulciber had suggested this set up on purpose, but Regulus would not be surprised, if only for the drama of following up on his own joking remarks, the last time. Barty was paired up with Evan to take another Ministry worker on the list, and Regulus felt more annoyed than usual that he was stuck with Mulciber while the two people he actually liked were paired with each other. How much easier it had been when they had been primarily isolated under Bella's mentorship - not only because it limited his potential task partners, but also because, for all her intensity, the expectations had still been lower - more easy to maneuver.

Of course, Bella's expectations would be even harsher, now that he was free from school. Perhaps it would be even worse than the Mulcibers', though he was not looking forward to testing it.

Something like paranoia was nibbling at the back of his mind… a lingering uncertainty. He wondered if Evan was watching him, if Mulciber was watching him, if Barty was watching him… Regulus didn't want to be here at all, not for another moment, and he could feel the subtle weight of his contingency potion tucked safely in his pocket.

They were talking amongst themselves when Regulus felt a sudden strike of resolution. The buzz of suffocating panic narrowed to something firmer as his fingers closed around the glass vial in his pocket. Leaning forward against the window, Regulus feigned rubbing his face, then swiftly drank the liquid. Even before the poison kicked in, he already felt sick to his stomach, but the boost of actual physical symptoms ought to be convincing enough.

In the window's reflection, he could see they were still talking, and the vial was back in his pocket before anyone turned his way again. He could hear Barty and Evan preparing to depart, but Regulus's eyes remained fixed on the glass.

The poison was fast-acting - perhaps jarringly so - and Regulus began to feel the nauseating blanche almost immediately. The symptoms would get worse, he knew - the feverish heat, the thumping pulse...

"Let's get moving," Mulciber said as he clapped Regulus on the back.

Regulus winced. The rush of dizziness wasn't fake at all. "My head doesn't feel right."

"Get it on straight, then," Mulciber replied, missing the point entirely, of course, though he did not seem to be searching very hard for it.

"You go on. I haven't been feeling well…" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Barty and Evan turning slightly to look. " I was hoping it would settle, but it's been getting worse all evening."

"Nonsense. You'll be alright. Just transfer all that discomfort into the mudblood's discomfort. Everyone wins," Mulciber replied, pulling his hood over his head. "Everyone who matters, at least."

"What do you expect me to do - vomit on them? Nausea isn't exactly intimidating, and I can't focus when I'm-"

When Regulus had not stood up, Mulciber simply grasped his shoulder again, followed by the unwelcome yank of side-along apparition. Regulus stumbled to stay on his feet, left only with empty air where his chair had been.

"Better pull that hood up. We're here," Mulciber said, pulling the hood over for him, pausing only briefly before adding. "You really are boiling in there. Get ready to channel those germs to a better purpose."

Something frantic was pulsing in Regulus's head, and he couldn't tell if it was the now splitting headache or the fact that Mulciber wasn't cooperating with the plan at all. What was the point if Regulus was roped in anyway? He could - he _wouldn't_ -

"I _said_ I don't feel well," Regulus clipped, steadying himself against the brick wall of their alleyway hiding place. "I'm going home."

"Don't be such a pansy," Mulciber replied. "It'll be over soon. If you feel the need to projectile your supper, just make sure to aim it somewhere else."

"If you want to see my vomit so bad, I'll send you a vial." Regulus's tone was tense, as much out of panic as it was from annoyance. "From my house. Tattle on me if you'd like, but I'm not…" Regulus grasped for a lie, then blurted out, "I'm not going to undermine our authority by stumbling through this." The lie made him feel sicker, still, as a little voice rang shrilly in his thoughts: _traitor_.

A traitor to the Cause - a traitor to his own thoughts - but it was the latter that started clawing at his insides, and he hated it.

Mulciber was starting to say something, but Regulus clenched his eyes closed, and without another word, focused hard on the front porch of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place and disappeared with a telltale crack.

Immediately, he could tell something had gone wrong. Doubling over, he leaned back against the door with a ragged breath. When his hand flew to the splitting pain in his ribs, he felt something wet through his cloak.

Blood. He'd splinched, of course, because the night was not bad enough yet. Every little shift was agony, and all he wanted to do was just sit on the porch and take momentary advantage of the disillusionment charm protecting them from the prying eyes of any nosy muggles.

Perhaps that only sounded like the best option because his head was spinning so much that he thought the floor was probably an inevitability, but he needed to make it to his room… to his bed… to the antidote, which had been left behind to strengthen his excuse that the poison was not for himself, had he been caught with it prior to taking it. As it turned out, his excuses were completely ignored, even _without_ being caught red-handed, and he was starting to get the miserable feeling that this might not have been as good of an idea as he had initially thought.

Stubbornly, he shook it off, gripping the handle and pushing open the door to stumble inside. He could not apparate - who knew what he might leave behind this time - and he had never in his life been so annoyed to reside in the room furthest from the front door.

He had managed to scale two floors before he heard his mother's voice from behind him.

"What are you doing, walking about like that?"

"I don't feel well," he replied. Though he tried to inject some confidence into his tone, it still sounded more feeble than he would have liked, and he couldn't find a way to move that didn't jab at his torso.

"Turn to face someone when you talk to them, Regulus!" His mother's voice was more exasperated than irate. "You're ill-bodied, not ill-mannered."

Regulus dipped his chin in a small nod, then turned to face her with a poorly veiled wince. "I apologise."

"Are you ill or injured?" his mother demanded, taking a step towards him.

"Both, it seems," he replied, blinking away another flush of dizziness, though what he really wanted was to get to his room as quickly as possible. This was not the sort of conversation he liked having with his mother - weakness was a point of embarrassment - but if there was any silver lining to be found, at least he wasn't with Mulciber.

"I felt ill and must have splinched, coming back," he said, pulling his hand from his rib. It was as bloody as it had felt.

" _Regulus Arcturus Black_ , are you standing there _BLEEDING_?" His mother reached to grab hold of his shoulders and push him towards the nearest room. "Do you have any idea how disrespectful it is to your entire ancient bloodline for you to go and spill it all over yourself? Go sit down! I'm having Kreacher call a Healer _immediately_!"

He needed his room, not this one, but he fumbled forward all the same, struggling to form the words to say that. Focusing on taking another breath, he felt his head clouding up again as he pointed vaguely upwards.

"I just need… I need my..." he began, distantly, but the sentence went unfinished as he hit the floor, the world going black.

* * *

Over the last three years as a qualified Healer (and the years before that as a Healer trainee), Ted had frequently found that St. Mungo's went from a heaving beast to a ghost building, over and over. The war had already kicked off the first time he entered a ward at twenty, so he didn't know if that was a war-specific issue. What he did know was the magical community had a tendency to become - well - a community and help each other when things got rough. Sometimes, it was grabbing a coffee for someone, and other times, it was an act of heroics that cost the person their life, but despite the increasingly difficult times, people fundamentally tried to help each other.

It was inspiring, but also infuriating, because he tried to live up to it even when he'd much rather be taking a load off with a cuppa and his wife. Who knew how long it would be before the next round of drama, whether at work or from her estranged family. Wasn't he entitled to that?

But half of his co-workers were in the same boat as him, so when he was asked to help out for a couple of hours more, he found himself agreeing. The Death Eaters were off at it again, and people trying to protect themselves from Death Eaters ended up hurting their friends, family, or themselves half the time, so he couldn't rightly say no. Especially as a muggleborn, some people found it comforting that he didn't have some fancy, ancient name. They felt safer.

Two bandaging, one spell reversal, and one fainting later, Ted ended up in Islington to check on a splinching gone wrong. That was another common one, but he wasn't looking forward to this one. The administrator said it might be better not to small talk, which was often code for 'old family likely to be funny with you'. It did sound familiar, so maybe he'd heard Andromeda mention the place in passing with a horror story.

It was a row house, and right away, the snake knocker set the tone. Old family, definitely going to be a snit. It wouldn't be his first, and quicker meant going home more quickly, if he wasn't stepping to his death first.

It was not a person but a house elf who answered the door. Again, not all together unusual. He was informed his patient was on the top floor with his mother. Likely someone quite young, then. That was always good in terms of healing, but harder too, when it was a bad situation. Still, even on the top floor of the house, it felt strangely narrow. There were no windows in the hallways, but it wasn't simply a lack of light from old gas lamps that made it feel dark and cramped. It felt old in the way parts of St. Mungo's still felt old, or Hogwarts.

A severe looking woman exited a door on the landing and gave Ted a look that made him feel as if he was somehow doing something wrong simply by standing at the top of the stairs.

"You're not the usual one," she said.

To Ted's understanding, there _was_ no usual Healer that did rounds, nor was this place on the books for frequent visits. Still, some people got attached to certain Healers. Or it was his age. Some Healers looked in their eighties or nineties, and he still got mistaken for being in training at twenty-five. "No, I'm afraid we stretched a little thin, but I'm capable nonetheless."

"I'll be the judge of that," she said.

This was going to be a fun one, he could feel it in his bones. "Could you please elaborate on the problem?"

For a moment, he thought she would not answer. "My son felt unwell and apparated. He has injured his chest, splinching something internal. He has been given a blood replenishing potion, but it seemed prudent to assess the damage."

"It is," Ted agreed. "May I go in?"

Manners seemed to be the way to go here.

"Unless you expect to examine him from the landing," the woman said. "I expect you had better."

Ted turned onto the landing, going to the door the woman had come out of. Then he saw it, and his stomach plummeted. _Do Not Enter Without the Express Permission of Regulus Arcturus Black_. That was why it sounded familiar. It made a little sense, he thought, given what he knew of Sirius's mother, but he'd never actually seen the woman in person, nor had he ever visited any of the houses.

Still, Ted wasn't entirely sure what he was getting himself into, other than the point that he was absolutely telling Mrs. Black to wait outside if she tried to enter. He wasn't about to give his name, and if Regulus did, perhaps that joke about not returning home at all would be more of a realistic concern.

His patient, now recurring, was his concern at the moment. The 'getting into trouble' gene was alive and well in the House of Black. If he too could manage alive and well, they'd be sorted..

Ted closed the door after him as quietly as he could, but not quietly enough. He saw Regulus stirring and gave a silent prayer to anyone who may be listening that the door remained shut. It was probably better to get the story from Regulus himself and not the edited version from his mother.

"We have to stop meeting like this," Ted said, voice barely above a whisper as he went over to the side of the bed to set down his bag. "People will talk. Can you sit up?"

Regulus blinked his eyes open, flicked a panicked look between Ted and the door, then croaked out, "What are you doing here?"

"I'm a Healer. Being called when people splinch themselves is an occupational habit." Ted followed his eye line and lowered his voice again. "I think she's waiting out there."

Stiffly, Regulus nodded. "Probably," he said, quietly, then sat up with a wince. "She doesn't… know who you are, does she?" Shaking his head, he answered for himself: "There's no way she could if you are still here..."

"The point of asking you if you could sit up was to prevent that. Doing things the hard way, then." It did seem to be a bit of a family trait, mind. "Nobody asks who Healers are. We're there for a job, and we do it. I was only tipped off by the door, or I'd possibly have asked someone else to do it - then again, maybe not. Is the sickness still there from July?"

"No," Regulus said - or perhaps mumbled was more accurate. He eyed Ted silently for a beat before tentatively adding, "It's different. There was a... situation, but I have it under control."

"I see that," Ted said. "But if it's a situation that will help me patch you up, can you enlighten me on it?"

"The splinching could benefit from some patching, but the illness…" He was unreasonably pale as he paused to blink - or maybe to gather his thoughts. "It is an avoidance tactic."

Regulus started to reach for his wand, got as far as grasping it where it had been set on his bedside table, but he paused for another moment, closed his eyes, and retracted his hand again, seeming to think better of whatever he had been about to do.

"There is a black vial in the desk drawer," he said with a vague gesture towards the desk across from his bed. "Not the black liquid, that's ink, and I don't want that."

"I'm getting you a painkiller first so I can get a better look at that chest," Ted informed him, diving into his bag for one of the vials instead. He pulled out one with a milky liquid and held it out to be taken. He didn't think Regulus would allow himself to be given it. "What did you do, take something to make you nauseous?"

Regulus flattened his mouth for a moment but accepted the vial, then sat up slightly more to drink the liquid in one swoop.

After handing it back - empty now - he shot Ted another tense look but replied, "Yes, and I ask that you keep it to yourself." A frown, and then: "My mother is already angry with me, as it is. Can you just get the antidote?"

Ted looked at him for a moment. "You're an adult. I don't have to inform your mother of anything. I will get it on the condition that this never happens again, because right now, I'm not convinced you aren't a danger to yourself. Are we clear?"

"It's not as if I'm just poisoning myself for the fun of it," Regulus said, a bit miserably.

"I'm not dismissing your reasons, but if something goes wrong, you could end up dying or permanently hurting yourself," Ted said, bluntly. "There has to be a more controlled response than almost dying twice in a few months."

"Fine. No more poison," Regulus said, running both hands over his face. From beneath his palms, he added, "Recurring illness is suspicious, anyway."

Ted reached out and gave him a squeeze on the shoulder. "You're getting hurt enough; don't pile on and do it to yourself. Safe, sane decision making. I'll get your antidote, but take your top off. I don't want you collapsing from infection either.."

"Just leave any potions or salves I need, and I can take care of it," Regulus said from beneath his hands again.

"No, you won't," Ted said firmly. "You're barely out of school, in a difficult situation, setting unreasonable expectations for yourself, resorting to multiple life-threatening and self-destructive behaviours, and are in imminent danger. Considering I'm not recommending you get admitted to St. Mungo's for your own good - which at this point would be what I would normally be recommending - the least you can do is let me do my job."

There was still a little frown tugging down the corners of Regulus's mouth as he maneuvered to expose the bloody gash in the middle of his left ribs.

"Please do be quick about it," Regulus mumbled, "This is humiliating enough as it is."

"It's not as embarrassing than dying from a simple spell backfiring," Ted replied. "Can you put pressure on it or is it too painful?"

Regulus's mouth pursed in a little scowl, but he shifted to press gingerly around it. Holding his face in a frozen expression, he replied, "No."

"Then I think you've ripped part of your rib out. That means you need to rest for 24-48 hours at least while it knits itself back together." Ted peeked into his bag, looking for something to stimulate the growth. "Real rest, in a chair or bed. Where's your antidote?"

"Desk drawer, on the right. Black vial," Regulus replied, looking up at the ceiling now.

"I'll give you something to put on it, since I don't think you'll let me." The vial wasn't too hard to find, considering. The implications of the action were far more troubling. He put it beside the bed. "Keep it clean, don't move too much, don't apparate, and if you're still sore in three days, make an appointment at St. Mungo's."

Regulus dipped a small nod, then took the antidote. There was no immediate change, but he felt slightly more relaxed, at least, sinking down into the bed again.

"I'm going to need you to say you'll seek help if you're still in pain in seventy-two hours," Ted said, again. He had some experience with patients in this area.

"I will…"

"Actual words," Ted prompted. He'd lived with a Slytherin since he was eighteen; he knew the work arounds for giving your word. "And I'll leave you alone."

Regulus rolled his eyes but complied: "If it is still a problem in seventy-two hours, I will seek additional assistance."

"Then I'll leave you alone," Ted said. He considered asking whether or not Regulus wanted him to reiterate the Healer instructions to his mother so they had Healer-weight behind them, but it probably wasn't the sort of thing you said to an adult. Even an extremely nervous and young one. "Unless there's anything else you need."

Regulus shook his head, still looking at the ceiling.

"Then I'll be on my way," Ted said. He picked up his bag and stood before glancing back. "If for whatever reason your mother decides to end my life before I cross the threshold, let my wife know I love her, will you?" If she hadn't come bursting in already, he didn't think there'd be a problem, but that was how they got you. Just looking around the room, Salazar Slytherin himself would probably think there was too much snake imagery, green, and casual purism here. "After you're done recovering, of course."

"Just don't say who you are." Regulus flicked his eyes over, then up again. "Under any circumstances."

"I have some common sense," Ted replied. Given his personal life, perhaps not that much, but he had _some_. He walked to the door, and said, "Stay safe."

It might be a bit odd if his mother was listening at the keyhole but he didn't imagine she would be. Either way, he wanted to leave quickly before he turned a corner and something even worse happened.

* * *

The worst of Regulus's overwhelming, dizzying nausea had just started to fade when his mother appeared in the doorway. It could not have been more than ten or fifteen minutes after Andromeda's husband had left, and he had spent every one of those minutes worrying that his mother might have noticed some clue that would expose both him and Ted Tonks for their shared deception.

"You are not allowed to die now," his mother said, crossing her arms. "I forbid it. It's too close to your father, people will talk."

That did not sound like suspicion so much as crippling disappointment.

"I understand," he said, forcing himself to look at her because he knew she would want him to, then looked to the ceiling again.

"Do you?" his mother said, taking a step into the room. "When you are severely injured enough that you can't maintain consciousness, you don't just fall over like a drunken wastrel! You say 'Mother, I'm bleeding severely and may soon pass out, so we ought to go to the hospital,' and I will take you to the hospital!"

"I was trying…" he began, but even continuing that line of defense felt like a poor excuse in the making. Trying was not what she was asking for. "I apologise for my poor display."

"Is this the danger you spoke of?" his mother demanded, more than asked.

"Part of it," he began carefully, knowing that he could not defend a claim that the Death Eaters had technically done anything when they hadn't. "I wished to abstain from the mission due to illness. I was denied that option, but I apparated home anyway," he said, carefully, his frame tensing subtly.

"To send someone ill into a mission would be a fool's errand," his mother said, by way of at least some sort of agreement. "What do you mean by 'denied'?"

"I said that I was not feeling well enough to participate, but my partner apparated me to the location anyway, perhaps underestimating the severity and my sincerity alike." Saying even that much felt a little bit like snitching, and Regulus wrinkled his nose slightly.

"Which partner?" His mother said, sharply.

Regulus hesitated for a beat before responding. "Mulciber."

"Of course it was!" his mother said, fumed. "No understanding of dignity, of respect for their heritage - followers, through and through! His father was the same, sniffing out people without proper names, half-breeds and their ilk just because they had influence. That family wouldn't know to wipe their noses without being instructed to do so! For that matter, they would probably blow something up in the process, given they wouldn't understand subtlety or finesse if their lives depended on it. And that boy, he thinks he knows better than you?"

For a moment, Regulus thought it might be a trap, but his mother appeared confident in her assessment - and Regulus did not particularly care for Mulciber either, if he was being especially honest. The tone she was using was the same sort of tone she took when she was talking about the Malfoys with their new money or their half-blood branch, or when talking about his Aunt Druella at all. It was not a pleasant tone.

The air of annoyance suited Regulus's situation well enough, but he still wasn't completely certain how aggressively he was meant to burn his bridges. Telling on Mulciber still felt like a betrayal, and he was not yet free of the Death Eaters; but lying to his mother about the faults of his murderous comrades still seemed like the worse choice, in the long-run.

Had Mulciber not forced the issue, there would not be a situation to snitch on.

"It seems he might," Regulus settled, forcing himself to look over at her again, if briefly.

"Of his own mind or because someone else has noticed you're not as interested as you were last year?" his mother asked.

"It's difficult to say," Regulus replied, his mouth flattening. "He has always been like that. I typically just ignore it because he is friends with Evan. Even so… There are too many eyes on the situation to discount the possibility that someone could be stirring suspicion. Perhaps, or perhaps not."

"You can't tell?"

"I didn't pretend to be excited about torture before, either," Regulus replied, sitting up a little bit more and carefully keeping the wince from showing on his face this time. "The commentary is no more pointed or frequent. The shift is in the implications."

"The implications if you say no?" his mother clarified.

He nodded.

"Do they have no loyalty to the old houses?" his mother asked. "Only to him?"

"I expect it depends on the person. I have not individually asked, for obvious reasons." Regulus shook his head. "It could merely be Mulciber's personality, but the result is the same."

"You already believe it of your cousin," his mother said. "Unless you'd also like to soften that by offering a more palatable idea of it being her personality?"

Technically, his family came to that conclusion about his opinions without consulting him, but accusing his mother of putting words in his mouth seemed like the quickest way to cut off her support.

"My concerns about Bella are based on her assertions that we ought to blindly follow the Dark Lord without question," he said, carefully. "Personality may play a role too, but she is both my mentor and my cousin. I am more wary of her devotions than I am of Mulciber's commentary when he provides unsolicited commentary to everyone. I must draw conclusions and calculate risks, so that is what I am trying to do."

"What conclusions have you made of the risk to this house?" his mother asked.

"That regardless of Bella's stance, or the loyalties of the other old houses, the Dark Lord will have a problem with my assessment of the situation. In light of that, I feel it is better to prepare for the worst, rather than to expect anything from anyone and find myself unprepared," he replied, perhaps a little too honestly, but he held her gaze with conviction in hopes that it might balance it out, if so.

"It isn't weakness, but obstinance, then." Walburga said, evenly. Regulus was not entirely certain if she was calling him obstinate or the rest of them obstinate, but as always, asking for clarification did not seem appropriate. "I want to know who may no longer be safe come Christmas. Make up your mind by then."

Thinning his mouth, Regulus simply nodded.

"Bellatrix should show loyalty to you regardless of what she believes. You are the future of our house. You may not have been the first choice, but you are the choice, and it will be your children and their children that will go on." His mother snorted. "Do you imagine that I always agreed with my brother? No, and she does not have to agree with you, but she will support you as the heir of her house and all that entails. If she refuses, she suffers the fate of all traitors."

Regulus harboured the sneaking suspicion that there was still a limit to that support, and he was less certain than ever about what that line was. Would continuing to speak to Sirius - or to Andromeda - forfeit that loyalty, despite being the last to carry the name? Were he to raise the issue, would his mother rather tolerate Sirius or cut their recognised legacy off at Regulus himself?

Looking at her and the stern expression on her face, Regulus had no idea, but asking such a question was as good as triggering the reaction. Any interest in Sirius would only restrict his movements further - preventing even the chance to interact with his brother, should the urge strike...

"I hope it does not come to such a fate," Regulus replied, honestly. "Family is priority."

"Family is _everything_ ," his mother corrected.

Regulus nodded, slightly, but he held a determined expression in place. "It is."

"Then you will rest and recover," his mother said, as if it was her idea entirely. "You'll need your strength."

"Yes, Mother."

There was a beat of silence where it looked as if she may leave, but instead she took another step inside the room. "No more unapproved visitors either. I care not if the Dark Lord himself comes to the door, you are not to be disturbed unless previously arranged. We don't associate with traitors or upstarts, especially those who were given multiple chances to mend their ways and refused such mercy. Are we clear, Regulus?"

Watching her face, she did not appear to be angry in a way that would suggest she knew about his 'mixed company' hobby, nor had there been any indication of suspicion regarding their Healer that day - meaning it was probably just a reminder… a nerve-wracking reminder, but a reminder, nonetheless.

Whatever had triggered the comment, her reminder wasn't actually necessary. After all, he had never invited Sirius _or_ Andromeda's husband into their home - but he dipped his chin in a small nod anyway.

"The recent… incident was a fluke, rather than an invitation. I understand that it must not happen again."

"Good. We can ill afford any more indiscretions if you want any credibility." With that, his mother walked to the door. "But if I even see that owl come near this house, I'm tearing its wings off."

An unpleasant image. Technically, he and his brother had only communicated using Regulus's own owl, as of late. The loopholes would not please her, but if he could get his brother to stop flaunting their rule-breaking directly in their mother's face, she wouldn't have to know… at least not until he had some solutions to his mother's hard stance on the matter. Canopus, at least, was still free to come and go...

"Of course."

With that, she departed.

* * *

"I saw your aunt today," said Ted, as if this were a perfectly normal thing to bring up.

They were sitting in their respective chairs with a glass of wine, because Ted had endured a stressful day (apparently more so than Andromeda had realised) and because getting Nymphadora Tonks to bed and staying there was an ordeal in itself. It was time to relax and get unknotted, but that was guaranteed not to happen if they were going to discuss her estranged family. It may not have been such a strange thing to say in another family - one where death, destruction and disownment didn't rule the day - but that was not the bloodline she came from.

"I see," Andromeda said, waiting for a beat in case he had an automatic follow up to such an ominous statement. "Which aunt?"

"Sirius's mother," Ted replied.

Of the options available, that was one of the more terrible ones.

"Your skin seems to remain attached to your bones," Andromeda said. "So I suppose she was not aware of your identity."

"No." Ted gave a soft laugh. "I'm not completely daft. I saw the house and gathered I probably should keep my mouth shut. Have to say, I've imagined a lot of things over the years, but it was very..."

There didn't seem to be an answer forthcoming. Perhaps he was trying not to be insulting. "Yes, it is." Andromeda hoped that eased any potential awkwardness. "What were you doing in Grimmauld Place? I think my former aunt would rather literally drop dead that admit the need for a Healer."

"It wasn't her," Ted said. "That's why I thought I should say something."

Andromeda let out a long, slow breath. "Regulus again."

Ted nodded.

"I told him the door was open," Andromeda said. "I don't know that I can do more than that. You cannot force him to realise something he isn't ready for."

"I just thought you'd want to know," Ted replied, but he didn't seem happy about it.

Andromeda could hardly blame him. She wasn't very happy about it.

"I'm glad you told me," she said, reaching for his hand and clasping it. "It's like watching someone falling to their doom while there is nothing you can do, because they cannot take a hand when offered."

"He's going to end up killing himself at this rate." Ted huffed. "He took poison and then couldn't get to his own antidote in time."

"Oh, for the love of-" Andromeda felt the frustration bubble up into her throat. "I'll owl him, incognito, but he was very young when I left. He still is. I don't know if I can get through any better than anyone else."

Ted bopped his head to the side. "Sirius?"

"Sirius may cause more problems than he solves," Andromeda said. Different problems, potentially more solvable problems, but without being able to speak to Regulus directly, it was extremely difficult to tell what could happen. It was no good attempting to predict Sirius. He prided himself on his own unpredictability. "But perhaps. Let me try first. If I don't hear back, we'll unleash that storm and hope we'll be forgiven it."

* * *

This was how, a few days later, Andromeda found herself at the door of Sirius (and Remus Lupin)'s flat. That was not strictly true – there was a door to a foyer which had stairs that would take you to the front door. It made some sense in terms of the security of it – people would have to wander a bit to find you – but Andromeda suspected it had more to do with the drama of having not one entrance but two. You could take the person out of the family, but you could not take the penchant for theatrics.

She buzzed the bell and waited. After a minute or so, she did it again. On the third try, a metal distorted voice came over. "Yeah?"

Andromeda couldn't help the snort that came out. Sirius really had no time for waiting about nor manners that meant you waited around. "It's Andromeda Tonks," she said.

"I don't know more than one Andromeda," Sirius said, through the tin.

Andromeda rolled her eyes. Possibly true, but important to establish. "Are you decent?"

"Not when I can help it," Sirius replied.

Oh, for goodness – "Are you wearing clothes covering parts that I'm sure are perfectly lovely in their own right but I have absolutely no desire to set eyes on?"

"I'm wearing clothes," Sirius said. That was no guarantee at all that he was company decent, but it would do. "Door's been broken for a month, just push it and come in."

Sure enough, Andromeda pushed the door, and it opened with a screeching noise. That really negated all of the safety provided by there being a two-step entering process. As tempted as she was to apparate upstairs, there were muggles afoot, so Andromeda walked up the two flights of stairs to find Sirius looking out of his door.

"I thought you weren't coming back here since you sat on the sofa last time, and I couldn't remember why it was sticky," Sirius said.

"I'm making an exception," Andromeda said, coming up in front of him

It wasn't particularly early in the day – certainly after lunch, so she was surprised to see he was still in what she imagined was his sleep attire. He did seem a little bleary-eyed, now she thought of it, blinking several times as he sat down.

"Are you ill?" Andromeda asked, opting to stand.

"No," Sirius told her. "Thanks very much, though."

"No, I mean." Andromeda indicated to him. "You were clearly asleep."

"Like most vigilantes, I spend most of my time doing stuff at night." That _did_ stand to reason. "What's the matter?"

"I think we may have a potential problem bubbling," Andromeda said. It had to be one of the few times such a sentence involved Sirius and Regulus, but the latter was the potential problem in question. "Are you awake enough to discuss it?"

Sirius raised his palms. "I'm all ears."

"It seems that Ted, with the shortages, had to call upon Number Twelve a few days ago." Andromeda stopped there, to gauge a response. Sometimes, there was little fanfare, and others, there was a ferocious explosion.

"You'd have told me before now if he was already dead," Sirius said.

"He's not dead," Andromeda replied. "He was there in a professional capacity."

"What, Mum's sick?" Sirius asked, jerking his head. "Is it life-threatening? Please say yes, it can be a birthday present a month early."

"Not your mother," Andromeda said. She watched as he put it together and thinned his lips, something she knew he'd picked up from his father and definitely something Regulus did at frequent intervals.

"What's he done now?" Sirius demanded, more than asked.

"He appeared to take something incapacitating as a 'sick note' for Death Eater business, but as you can imagine, it all went horribly awry." Andromeda had to admit, it sounded even worse put like that. "Ted says he's okay now. He took the antidote that he did not have access to when he lost consciousness, but if it's at that point, it's time to have a word."

"Can the word be 'idiot'?" Sirius asked. "It sounds like it should be 'idiot'."

"Be that as it may," Andromeda began, "I sent an owl, but either his health is still deteriorated, or his mail may be monitored."

"Of course she's snooping his mail!" Sirius huffed in annoyance.

"I'm just worried," Andromeda said, as lightly as she could.

Sirius ran his palm over his face and took a deep breath. "What can I do about it? I went to the house last time and got screamed out for my trouble, so it's not like I can get a hold of him. I only ran into him last time because he came here."

"Here?" Andromeda asked. It was the first she'd heard of _that_.

"The Prewett twins have their little swot club at the last person who won's place or their choice of venue," Sirius replied. "Last time was Remus."

"So he came here?" Andromeda asked. "Willingly?"

"Dunno if they told him where he was going," Sirius admitted. "But I'd bet not. No big drama got back to me."

"Would it?" Andromeda asked.

"I think so," Sirius said. "I see half of them out and about in one way or another."

So he had been at least relatively fine recently in terms of going anywhere he pleased. "Do you know where the next one is?" Andromeda asked.

Sirius registered what she was really asking immediately. "You want me ambush?"

"You don't usually have a problem with it," Andromeda said. "But ambush is a strong word. Perhaps simply wait on it to disband and quietly request a private word?"

"That's not usually how my ambushes go," Sirius said. "He's probably annoyed with me for getting caught leaving, so he could just be a brat. More of one than usual."

"If he's continually threatening his own life with his actions, let alone the lives of others, then should we not attempt to do something?" Andromeda asked.

There was a beat of silence.

"Yeah, okay." Sirius agreed, quietly. "But it backfires, I'm blaming it all on you."

* * *

Just weeks before, Regulus had felt as though his room was a prison, barring him from moving forward - a mark of punishment for his bad behavior. However, in the days following his poison disaster, Regulus had been relieved, at least, to be free from any social obligation.

Over a week had passed since he last left the house, but several owls had visited - and for the sake of an innocent owl, Regulus was glad that none of them had come from his brother. Barty and Evan had asked after him - more than once, in Barty's case - but the part of Regulus that missed their casual company was overruled by the part that wanted to avoid any conversation that could possibly circle back to the Death Eaters. No matter how genuine their concerns for his health might be, the risk of those concerns shifting to his allegiance was getting higher.

Abigail had written to him, too. A letter free of the suffocating drama surrounding his current circumstances proved to be a welcome relief. She had mentioned Hogsmeade in a recent letter, and he found that he was looking forward to interacting with someone who didn't realise the world was falling apart.

He had migrated down to the drawing room, tonight, now that he could move without feeling like his rib was being yanked out all over again. As he flipped through a book on occlumency, a soft tapping against glass drew his attention to the window, Before he had the chance to set aside his book and stand up, his mother was already sweeping towards it.

"Don't get up!" his mother snapped, already at the window now. She was looking at the owl as if it may explode. "You're supposed to be resting, not collecting unfamiliar owls! Why are you being written to?"

The most nerve-wracking part of her question was not knowing the answer. He did not recognise the owl either.

"I'm not sure," he replied, biting back the fact that he had no way of knowing the purpose of the letter without reading it. Already, his mind was turning over explanations for the unfamiliar messenger. "May I see?"

For a moment, it looked as if she was going to say no, he couldn't. "You don't know the owl?"

Fending off the small prickle of panic, Regulus grasped at the most ready excuse he had: "Abigail and I have been exchanging occasional letters. Most likely, it is a school owl. I am exchanging letters with no other unidentified owls."

Of course, that was not the owl Abigail had been using thus far, but he allowed no cracks in his expression as he watched his mother accept the letter. After a moment, she handed it over with a distasteful look.

"It's ridiculous she doesn't have her own owl."

"Perhaps she has an owl that is otherwise disposed," he said, feeling a little guilty for shifting the weight of the lie into someone who wasn't even here. He was fairly certain Abigail had her own owl, but to say as much would undermine his own excuse when he had a feeling the author of that letter was just as likely to trigger his mother as it was likely to be 'neutral'. "But it is hard to say. We are still getting to know each other, after all."

"Is she planning on coming here?" his mother pressed.

The question should not have surprised him, but it did, a little bit, if only because they had been talking about the letter. He and Abigail had not specifically discussed visiting each other's homes, though with the discussions of potential marriage, he supposed she would come to their house _eventually_. His mother's desired timing was unclear; in truth, Regulus was having trouble telling if she was offended that it had not occurred over the summer or if she did not want it to occur over the winter. Considering this whole ordeal had been his mother's idea, he supposed the former was more likely, but better not to assume anything too confidently.

"Should everything continue to move forward as it is, I expect she will," he said as diplomatically as he could manage.

"Expecting means nothing," his mother said, sitting down at her chair to resume her activity. "Find out."

Regulus nodded, though she wasn't looking at him anymore.

"The first Hogsmeade weekend is coming soon - in approximately two weeks," he clarified, anticipating the follow up question was likely to come, even if it happened around the same time every year. "I am planning to visit, so perhaps I can broach the subject then."

"Good," his mother responded, without looking up. "The sooner this is sorted out, the better."

"Of course," he replied, dutifully.

When he was relatively confident that her attention had shifted away from him, he propped up his book between them and carefully thumbed open the letter. The handwriting was neat - and looking at it, the artful curves did actually look a little bit like Abigail's handwriting, though he found no signature at the bottom.

The contents were a fairly vague extension of worry, but he did not need a signature - nor any recognition of either the owl nor the writing style - to gather it must be from Andromeda. More than likely, her husband had tattled. A tiny spike of panic yanked in his chest, feeling his mother's presence even more keenly than he had a moment before, but he kept his expression calm as he folded up the parchment again and tucked it away.

He didn't have the space to work through what a letter like that meant just yet, but his mother had not seen what would have undoubtedly been a suspiciously anonymous expression of concern.

That, at least, meant he would have the chance to work through it eventually.

* * *

The problem was that Remus absolutely knew something was up. Since he wasn't looking for Remus to attempt to give him a lecture on it, nor was he looking for Remus to tattle on him again, that made asking about the rebellion a bit dodgy. There was always Lily, but since James had thrown a proper wobbly at the last big Order meeting and asked him if he was 'going home' since he seemed to be spending so much time there, Sirius wasn't keen on going over there. The accusation still stung – not everyone could have the perfect family, twice over. Even if they weren't _his_ family anymore, he was still related to them, and he did just dump his (maybe, probably, given the etching) brother in it. Sirius had a bit of responsibility to make sure he didn't end up dead by his doing. Alas, Sirius's own reputation for sabotage was working against him, but after assuring Remus it was nothing to do with some glorious prank to set up at the Leaky, he relented and gave him the date. Remus did seem perturbed when he asked for the time he thought it'd be over, so maybe he believed Sirius was about to ambush him and make him squeak like a third year in front of his swotty mates, but this time at least, Remus wasn't who he wanted to ambush.

'Want' may be the wrong word. It wasn't that he didn't want to, but there was a deep seated sense of dread that came along with trying to initiate any sort of contact with his wayward sibling. Maybe he was afraid Regulus would just walk away and ignore him completely. Maybe he'd be angry, but anger was never something Regulus knew how to deal with. He really ought to learn to throw a decent punch; it'd make him feel so much better. Another failure as an older brother Sirius could chalk up on the board.

Still, the Leaky had ears and eyes about it, even when a bunch of them met there to solve puzzles all night. This would require some subtlety, which he was fully capable of, thanks very much. He didn't _always_ get caught at school, and McGonagall was hard to get past. However, it helped to have a furry secret identity, and early autumn was still warm enough that the cobble streets were comfortable enough wait a little while on. There weren't a ton of people there after eleven at night, just a couple of drunks who may have noticed him, considering the commentary on a 'big fucker'. As far as dogs went, Sirius could admit it, his animagus form was definitely a 'big fucker'.

He waited for people to leave, hoping Regulus wouldn't do something as horribly impolite as just apparating out of the room. He didn't think he would. He may now be a reluctant member of a torturous, murderous group of pillocks who perpetrated the myth of blood purity, but he was never rude. Biting, sarcastic, and pedantic, but not rude.

 _Shit_ , he thought as Remus popped around the corner. For a moment, he thought he'd been seen, but the darkness by the pub and being all black was usually good camouflage. Remus might know better than anyone what to look for, so Sirius reckoned he should take his chance now on the near deserted streets of Diagon after midnight. With a _pop_ , he brushed off his knees and scraped his shoes on the stones, still with an eye on the door until he saw a familiar profile exit.

"Have you got a minute?" he asked, voice louder than he liked against the quietness of the street.

Regulus jolted, slightly, then turned to look at him - hesitated for a beat - then nodded as he walked over.

"Here or somewhere else?" It looked deserted enough, but it would be just as easy to walk through the barrier and disappear into muggle London.

Pressing his lips to a line, Regulus spared a quick glance around and shifted subtly on his feet. "Somewhere else, I suppose."

Taking one last look back, Sirius went through the barrier. He wasn't sure if Regulus would follow, but he couldn't watch him every minute. They were only a ten minute walk from Soho. They could walk down that way and blend into the crowds coming from the clubs, shows, and other scandalous things that no one from the ancient house of clenching would ever subject themselves to.

"Did you get an owl from Andromeda?" Sirius asked, keeping his voice low.

From a couple of steps behind, Regulus replied: "Yes."

At least he'd gotten it, and more importantly than that, acknowledged that he got it. Sirius stopped and turned, taking smaller steps backwards. He didn't look too bad. Not as bad as he'd been imagining.

"I would have, you know." Sirius made a vague hand gesture. "But of course I'd also understand if you didn't want me to, since it would have made things worse than I had by trying."

"It's better that you didn't," Regulus said grimly, without making eye contact. "She said she will pull Hootie's wings off if she sees him."

Sirius grimaced. From his mother, not likely to be an idle threat. He wasn't getting his owl mounted up on the wall like one of the bloody house-elves. His father had given him that owl after he'd gotten his Hogwarts letter; one of the few clear, distinct memories he had of the man that weren't tainted.

"He likes seeing Canopus, anyway. I wouldn't have seen the note if Hootie wasn't going bonkers against the window to let him in."

"At least someone's life is uncomplicated, even if it is just the owls," Regulus said, wryly, as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Speaking of complicated, did you really make yourself sick again?" Sirius asked. He knew he had - no reason Ted would lie about it - but he wanted the answer nonetheless.

Regulus flicked his eyes over, then forward again with his chin lifted. "For a good reason."

"I can guess the 'good reason'," Sirius said. He could; he'd seen enough people do it to get out of tests at school and end up in the hospital wing while just trying to convince McGonagall. What Regulus was avoiding was also hard to convince people you were incapable of doing without serious intervention. Especially if Evan was sniffing around him. "But that's twice, so right now, I'm a little more worried about you than my owl. Should I be?"

"I have it under control."

Sirius stopped dead, and stared at him in disbelief. If almost killing yourself twice in six months is under control, he'd hate to see what being out of control was. "Other than standing here with me, what part of your life is under your control right now?"

"I would say that standing here is a decent indicator," Regulus said, shrugging his shoulders. "I am no longer poisoned, with no external or internal wounds to speak of. I know how to plan for contingencies."

"You can be the smartest person in the room, and still, you can't plan for contingencies for everything! If Mum had called one of the corpse-munching Healers, could you say you'd be alive right now? Some of this is planning for a contingency, and some of it just plain dumb luck." Sirius wondered if he gave him a good shake, if some common sense would come loose and float to his brain. "Tell me the truth: is that all it is, or are you - is this your weird little brain's way of punishing yourself for fucking up?"

"There are going to be consequences. I'm dealing with them - that's all," Regulus said, still looking forward.

"Yep, there will, and I know you feel guilty because you have half a soul left." There was no point in denying that. No matter what, there would be consequences. "You'd still rather hurt yourself than someone else, but you could still face prison, death, disownment, losing your soul, or worse, end up like Bellatrix. Stop accepting a punishment before a verdict has even been cast. Even when it is, you can argue it. You can argue your way out of almost anything! No one finds loopholes like you find loopholes."

"Finding loopholes and making my point as appropriate is not a problem," Regulus countered. "I'm here, am I not?"

"You are," Sirius bobbed his head in agreement. "But you didn't get into this mess by yourself, so why do you think you have to climb your way out of it alone when you very clearly have people who give a damn about you? Maybe more damns than you give about you."

"Because I recognise that it turns my problem into other people's problem, and there are enough people at risk already." Regulus's mouth started to pull down in a frown, followed by another flicking look. "Considering Potter's penchant for unsolicited commentary on situations that have nothing to do with him, I'm surprised that has not come up."

They were not talking about James. If James was not having an opinion on Regulus that Sirius was going to acknowledge, then Regulus got no commentary on James either. "Your problem is other people's problem already. It was other people's problem when you were nine. Andromeda wouldn't have asked if she didn't want to help, and despite what Mum says, there's no shame in accepting help now and then."

"Everyone has very different ideas of what 'helping' looks like," Regulus replied, dryly, as he leveled a pointed look. "The more people are involved, the less controlled the situation becomes, and it's already one ingredient short of an explosion."

"Fine, I deserved that." That he was still being spoken to after setting their mum on his brother was impressive enough. "I know I'm a walking explosion. It doesn't have to be me. I think that's why Andromeda wanted a word."

"Does she want a word?" Regulus lifted his brow. "She did not mention it."

"This is the problem with being polite!" Sirius declared, throwing his hands up. "There's too much build up till you say what you wanted to say in the first bloody place, so no one knows what you actually want. 'I'm worried about you' is code for wanting a word."

"Is she planning to lecture me too?" Regulus said towards the concrete sidewalk. "It's a popular pastime, but I'm at my limit for the moment."

"Worse," Sirius said, screwing his face up. "She might hug you."

"I need several things right now, but a hug is not at the top of the list," Regulus said with a huff, shaking his head. "I would settle for a day free of being watched like I'm either hiding you on the top floor or trying to kill myself. It's a little unclear which is worse right now, but I'm not doing either, regardless."

"One has a lot more of a permanent consequence," Sirius said. Maybe not, considering consorting with traitors also could have a lasting, scorching effect. "Besides, I think it's more maiming than suicidal. It's why beating you up was always redundant. You do a much better job on yourself than anyone else could. That's why everyone is more worried about what you'll end up doing to yourself instead of what you'll end up inflicting on other people."

Regulus looked over again, then forward. "I'm not trying to maim myself either."

"Then you must just be a natural, because you're succeeding."

"I'm not trying to _permanently_ maim myself," Regulus corrected with a slight eye roll. "Which I am succeeding at, yes."

"Look, among the few things you and I can claim to have in common beyond blood, excellent bone structure, and humour drier than the Sahara is that sometimes we both need telling when something should be a fleeting idea that you pass on the way to a decent idea and not something you go through with." The avoidant glances were making his point for him, if nothing else. There was one very recent example of how this was acting more like a Gryffindor than anything else. "Like...showing up without telling anyone to meet a Death Eater armed only with an owl with a class complex and my wits? Pure instinct, was only putting myself at risk, so I didn't think much beyond that. Could easily have died horribly if you were in fact a murdering, torturing pillock. You're not, but you're daft if you don't think I got my face ate off me for just jumping into it."

Regulus shook his head. "I have my doubts that anyone else's ideas are going to more effectively solve my problem in the way I need it to be solved."

"Snob," Sirius said, not unkindly. "You don't have to listen to anyone else's ideas, just to get out of your head and to make sure your ideas are remembering your own value."

"That is very sentimental. Are you certain you are feeling alright?"

"No, I'm sleep deprived because everyone and their mother has decided I know what's going on with you, and I'm the one to ask!" Also because he was a vigilante, but he really was getting it all angles from Alice, Dorcas, Gideon, even Remus and Lily. No one knew what disowned meant anymore. Considering Sirius was standing here, he also apparently didn't know what it meant. "I'm having nightmares about Mum showing up at my front door to yell about you and do that thing where it sounds like she's asking a question you're supposed to answer but for the love of Merlin and tiny mooncalves everywhere, you do not answer the question."

"At least it's just nightmares," Regulus muttered with a little bristle in his tone. "You didn't have to come if it's such a bother."

"Either I care too much and I'm grossly sentimental, or I don't care enough so I shouldn't try. I can't win!" Sirius huffed. "She can't be as bad as she used to be with me, right? Mum _likes_ you, as much as she's capable of liking anything. That has to count for something."

To that, Regulus simply shrugged.

If he wasn't running to her defense, maybe she really was ripping into him.

"You could move out," Sirius said, floating the idea. "Dad's father did, so did Andromeda's. Unless you're planning on kicking Mum out at some point."

"I don't think ousting her would go over very well - and everyone would be suspicious of me moving out, at this point," Regulus said, though it didn't sound like a complete rejection of the idea. "Perhaps when things calm down..."

"Calm down?" Sirius asked, voice dripping with skepticism.

"For right now, it is calming down in the sense that it isn't getting worse." He shook his head. "I don't want to give Uncle Cygnus _more_ reasons to tell Bella."

That was no one's definition of calm but Regulus's own, but it said more about how badly the claws were dug in that Regulus was far more afraid of Bellatrix than a Dark Lord. "You think you can spin this to her?"

"I don't know," Regulus said, brow pinching, slightly. "But at least if I tread lightly and try to lessen the damage, then there is a chance. If I don't, then she will _definitely_ be a problem."

"I don't think there's a way to say 'I don't believe some bloke calling himself a dark lord is actually a celestial being sent to save wizardkind from the oh so terrible _impure_ ' and have it not turn out badly. Even if you're polite, she won't be." Sirius couldn't imagine it going any other way. To say anything other than worship was to call Bellatrix the fool she was, and she wasn't going to take that from any teenager. "But if you insist on the fool's errand, I'd ask one of your swotty friends about illegal portkey creation. One of the reasons I'm still here and not strewn in several parts in Godric's Hollow."

Regulus shot him a sideways glance. "An intriguing idea… but do you really think they will just hand out an illegal portkey without any questions asked? I haven't exactly explained my situation."

"You don't need a hand out. You just need to know how to do it yourself." It was probably too risky to point out that there was someone in magical transportation (how would they know each other) or that the Prewetts worked with experimental magic (since he and Gideon seemed close and it might disrupt things even more), but there was also finding the game. "Isn't that what you lot do in there, figure out obscure and tricky spellwork for fun? It definitely wouldn't be the first illegal thing you lot have done."

"True enough," Regulus replied, this time more wry than sullen.

"That would be some of the perspective I was talking about," Sirius said, pointedly. "When people try to leave, they do it alone and die. You don't have to tell people. You can work around it and find a loose approximation of what truth you can live with, but it'll be that help that lets you survive this. That and reminding Andromeda's father that his loyalty is supposed to be to the continuation of the house, not his daughter's inclination for getting on her knees."

"Apparently, that reminder has been communicated. I just wasn't part of the conversation."

"Why weren't you-" Of course he bloody wasn't. She just loved to put words in people's mouths. "Don't answer that, I already know the answer. He's not going to take _her_ word for it, and the fact it is hers and not yours makes you seem like an ickle baby who needs his mother to fight his battles for him. Despite what you look like, you're a man now, and you have control to assert - as long as you actually assert it. He just can't stand the idea that Bellatrix and her oh so loyal service is no longer impressive in the house's eyes, and instead, she's been hoodwinked by some delusional bloke."

"It's not that I'm unwilling to tell him," Regulus said, defensively.

"You may feel better if you do," Sirius said. After all, the first tastes of freedom - or what passed for it when remaining unscorched - was both exhilarating and a revelation of power you didn't know you had. "If only to prove to yourself that you can. This isn't the Death Eaters - this is just family politics."

"Yes… Perhaps it would help." Regulus let out a sigh. "Uncle Cygnus can't be _that_ much worse, surely."

"It's all about the show," Sirius admitted. In that house, he'd always worried about losing his mind, not his life. There'd been a moment here and there, but on the whole, the danger had been a tight thread beginning to unravel. Not unlike their dearest mother. "If you can weather the screaming, there's nothing else they can do. That tapestry will have to be pried from Mum's cold, dead hands."

Regulus flattened his mouth. "So it seems. At least _some_ members of the family are motivated to avoid the extinction of our name, with there being no other boys to choose from, at this point."

"Not bad." Not the most subtle dig, if you could call it that, but better than Sirius had expected from him. Regulus had a tendency to try to look docile when he was being 'agreeable' - but while agreeable might work for the second son (and infuriate the first), Regulus was the only heir now. Sirius would rather he learned to defend himself properly. "Technically, should be the extinction of the house, as I'm not about to change my name, and I'm going to guess other people didn't either, but a solid snipe. Always happy to be the cautionary tale."

"Cautionary tale is putting it lightly." Regulus thinned his mouth wryly.

"You literally joined a torturing, murderous organisation in the same position," Sirius pointed out, sharply. "Ease up a little on the judgement."

"You think I haven't realised that?" Regulus rolled his eyes. "I must be my own cautionary tale, at the moment, because I'm apparently the only one this isn't working out for."

It was hard to argue that without arguing that it wasn't great to be despised by most of the people who raised you, and he wasn't about to _say_ that. He was happy to leave; he just really ought not to have done it alone.

"When push comes to shove, you're always the preferred choice. Even half the people I hang out with like you; everyone we're related to likes you better; and most of the teaching staff. You're also still alive, so it's working out better than anyone else thus far."

Regulus glanced over with a searching look, then turned his attention forward again. "Hopefully, it will remain that way."

"Just don't be a total idiot again, and you're set," Sirius said, bluntly. He thought for a moment to push it - to point out that Regulus liked a lot of the same crowd he did, these days, and had more problems with his older crowd. But Regulus was a clinger, and he'd cling to every last person, while still trying to balance it with the new. If he decided neutral was acceptable and Voldemort wasn't, and kept to it, the potential domino effect within family and Death Eater alike would be intense. The idea of his tiny, ickle brother trying to take on Bellatrix and rope her into line was laughable, but he _was_ trying...

"Not a total idiot - understood."

It wasn't the right time. Sirius didn't know if there would be a right time, but it didn't look like his brother absolutely hated the sight of him. It was a stark reminder that, while Sirius liked 95% of his disownment - the freedom, the fact his uncle paid no attention to it, no awful occasions, no dealing with that house, no batty house-elves - he couldn't deny some guilt gnawing at his insides over the circumstances of it. He couldn't say so, of course; you leave yourself open, saying things like that, and whatever James in his stupid bad mood had said, Sirius didn't miss 'home'.

He did miss his brother, more so than he wanted to let on, and it had gotten harder to deny that when their father died. It had gotten a lot harder when Regulus seemed perfectly open to converse on his own terms, because then it switched things up. Neither of them had cast the burn mark ejecting him from the 'family', but Regulus had played his role of ignoring him, and Sirius had annoyed him, and it had been a strange drifting over a year or so. First there was school: the option was always there till it wasn't. Then the Death Eaters, which Sirius knew he ought to have figured out a way to yank him down from even trying that. Then their father, and then the scare in July. It was a process of letting go, piece by piece, only for it to be thrown into chaos when Regulus owled him. Now they were two floundering adults trying to figure out what they were to each other - something that Sirius suspected was family, if not by tapestry definition, but by his own.

"And owl Andromeda so I don't get it in the ear," Sirius added, instead. He wasn't ready to point out that, in some ways, they agreed on more now than they had in a very long time, for risk of shutting that down. It wasn't just about him or their messed up relatives, but he also knew Meadowes had to be scoping him out. She didn't know how ideal a candidate he was... more so if he could lie more than Sirius suspected (if he could lie to Mum, he could lie to anyone) and not die in the process. A chance to make a difference in the war was on the line too.

"As long as it doesn't result in _me_ getting lectured again, fine."

"Lecture is a step up from coming over, right?" Sirius said. That was pushing it, he knew. But Regulus hadn't yelled at him about it yet! Surely landing him in it with their mother had terrible consequences. but in an unexpected development, he wasn't slinging any of it or making accusations. He was being surprisingly level-headed. Sirius didn't like it at all. You had to watch out for level-headed people. "I could do that if you would like that better."

"I would not like that better, no."

"I learned my lesson there," Sirius replied, lightly. "I think my ears are still ringing. I am, er, sorry about that one. Not what I said, I stand by that, but for making things worse. That's also a speciality of mine, but you already knew that, huh?"

"Yes… and I am fixing it. That is my speciality." Regulus offered a wry smile, followed by a dragging sigh. "But I accept your apology. I realise you weren't there because you like the scenery, so I appreciate your intentions, at least."

It felt almost strange to hear when it wasn't being thrown as an insult. It wasn't one, either. "Right, I better clear off." Sirius said, shaking the thought off. "Some of us have jobs to get to."

"Job?" Regulus lifted his brow. "Is that what you are calling your activities now?"

"What do you call yours?" Sirius asked. Family outing wouldn't be too far from the truth. "To be honest, it's more like school. A lot of homework, broken bones, and waiting around."

Flattening his expression, Regulus nodded.

"Except instead of getting something embarrassing, like an A, people die if you mess up." Sirius gave a quick, uncomfortable smile.

"In my situation, the opposite is true." His mouth tightened a little, and he didn't shift even a swift look, instead keeping his attention forward.

Sirius hadn't thought of it that way. Regulus had a lot of academic pride, after all. "Wow, having to act like you're incompetant must be killing you."

Regulus's expression soured a bit more. "It is."

"More incentive to hurry," Sirius replied. To be thought a fool might be even worse than being thought of as a coward.

"I am," Regulus clipped, a little petulantly. "There is nothing enjoyable about this situation."

That wasn't entirely true.

It was a matter of personality. As the rebellion proved, Regulus found it easier to spend time with civil people working on a problem than active battle participation. It wasn't as if Sirius _couldn't_ do that - he had helped create the map, become an animagus, and had never gotten below an EE in his life - but it was a matter of Regulus growing in that environment. They'd been walking through London talking, then stopped, and were _still_ talking. Aside from the subject matter, Regulus was utterly unphased by this when six months ago he doubted that he could have gotten ten words out of him without a dire circumstance.

Then again, maybe life was just a dire circumstance right now. Either way, Sirius couldn't say it wasn't a little enjoyable. He could take or leave most of the pieces of his identity left behind at Grimmauld Place, but being an older brother was like a comfortable pair of shoes he'd left at the back of his closet that he hadn't realised he'd been missing until worn. He loved his mates more than life itself, but it was different to grow up with someone. He had so few people he had grown up with that didn't want to murder him and vice versa. It was a shared history and experience that, even when he'd tried to explain, never really came out right. It was one thing to openly mock Andromeda's mother for being so over the top that she was practically floating, and another to know someone who can remember the time the reindeer lights 'mysteriously' came to life and galloped off into the night. Regulus might roll his eyes or say it wasn't nice, but there was a not-laughing laugh under the words that was always satisfying to hit the note on.

"I don't hate this," Sirius said, quietly.

Regulus eyed him for a moment, then gestured between them. "I didn't mean _this_ situation."

"You're counting it as separate situations?" Sirius asked.

Following a brief pause, Regulus nodded. "Yes. The 'must extract myself from this organisation' situation and... the family situation."

"Which does 'the family situation about the leaving the organisation' come under?" Sirius asked. "Or is it a special third category?"

"Despite the overlap, it falls mostly under family…"

"At least one situation isn't as bad as it could be," Sirius said. "I'm not used to being the less frustrating situation, but being an adult makes you do weird shit."

"I must agree. Adulthood has been a surreal experience, thus far."

"Your experience of adulthood has been Death Eaters, secret swot clubs, and if my being cornered by Mrs. Longbottom is anything to go by, going out with a girl. For someone who likes stability, that's a lot of changes at once." Then there was this, whatever it could be called, and Andromeda got sucked into it too.

Shifting subtly on his feet, Regulus nodded. "It is a lot - but whether or not I like it, stability won't go very far in fixing any of this. So here we are."

"Here we are," Sirius echoed. He gestured around the street. "In the middle of muggle London after midnight. If someone had said that to me six months ago, I'd have thought they were soft in the head."

"Six months doesn't seem very long, but it is plenty of time to turn everything upside down, as it turns out."

"It's only been seven since the funeral," Sirius added. That seemed a lifetime ago.

"That's about when it started yes," Regulus said with a sigh.

"Not in December?" Looking back now, there was no way Regulus had been trying to hurt him, that night they had fought in the snow - the night Sirius had found out who was behind one of those Death Eater masks. Trying to slow him down, sure, but that was more like playing.

Regulus shook his head. "I mean in the sense of actually doing something about the feeling of dissatisfaction." A brief pause, and then: "I still felt too stuck to accomplish much in December."

"I still can't believe you, the person who likes conflict the least, are the first person to do something about it. You're surrounded by people who are self-obsessed with their blood, don't take any crap from anyone, and overreact to everything." Sirius rolled his eyes. "But this, this is tickety boo? Where's the screaming for accountability? This is the one time it's useful, and it's the sleeve-puller that's furious enough to do something? I just...don't understand."

"Everyone acts so surprised, but I'm not weak," Regulus said, a little stiffly.

"Strength in the noble house of Black is who can scream the loudest," Sirius replied. "In truth, strength is just unapologetically being who you are. It scares people when you do that . At least I've always been difficult. _You_ , most of all, it scares them because you try to be so many people for them that they think what they see is all there is to it. You get used to it."

"I suppose so," he responded with a small frown.

No argument? What the hell was going on in that house that he wasn't jumping to their immediate defence? "You sure you're alright?"

"I should go on home," Regulus said, the words a bit abrupt as he scanned the area - maybe looking for the least conspicuous spot to do so. "It's late enough, as it is."

"Lingering out after a reasonable hour, wandering Muggle London, spending time with less than approved company, and consorting with muggleborns and 'traitors'," Sirius listed off. Talk about walking in his footsteps. If he kept this up, Sirius wouldn't feel very special at all. "Things must be bad. It took me a lot longer to do any of that, but as usual, you just love picking up something faster than me."

"You weren't trying to avoid murder - or being murdered." Regulus's attention had settled on a poorly lit shopfront. The entrance was inset by several feet, and everything was shut down this late, making it a decent cover, if he went for it. "I've had two years to agonise over the possibilities. The problems are escalating _now_ , so I must adapt to them now."

"Two years," Sirius echoed. "You've been stewing for two years?"

"Do you think I've been enjoying myself?" Regulus shifted a sideways look. "I wasn't planning for things to happen like this, but that doesn't mean I haven't been considering the different ways it could go."

"I'm not calling you impulsive!" Sirius huffed. "I'm just commiserating! Can you stop acting like everything I say is a trap? I'm trying to listen to you to figure out how worried I should be."

Regulus was silent for a beat before responding. "Sorry," he muttered, though it was barely audible. "Typically, everything _is_ a trap."

Didn't he realise that, of all people, Sirius knew that the best? "I'm not...If I wanted to trap you, there's easier ways. I want you to be able to make your own decisions. You have the right to."

Regulus nodded but didn't say anything.

"If you're looking for someone who knows all the traps because he spent five years triggering every possible one, even ones that seem to contradict other ones, then look no further." Sirius was about to say there was nothing he hadn't done, but he had never joined the Death Eaters. "Having somewhere safe to go where no one has any expectations of you when things get too hard - it helps."

"I imagine so." He was looking at the sidewalk again. "It's not always that simple, but..." Another pause, then he added, "Thank you for trying to help."

Sirius just nodded. They'd be standing there long enough. Next time, he was just asking him to come over. "That's what family is supposed to do."

Regulus tipped a small nod, then took a few steps under the cover of the shadowy storefront, framed by dark, painted wood walls.

"I really do need to go home. I've pushed it too long already." After checking through the single glass window on the door, he added with a touch of irony to his tone, "Try not to get killed or arrested," then disappeared with a pop.

"That's my line," Sirius muttered to thin air. He'd have to nip that in the bud or he'd wind up as nuts as the rest of his relatives. Still, he had to run. Trying to convince Regulus to do anything was pulling teeth, but if he felt all right enough to be a brat, he was probably fine. He'd give him a week to talk to Andromeda, then he'd go bug someone else about him for a change.


	13. Shrouded by the Sea

"Mother," Walburga said, trying in vain to keep the surprise from her voice. Her mother was not one to come calling without reason. She was a social enough person, but she was aware that Walburga was not - and usually, did not push her to be - social more than social standing required.

Her mother handed Kreacher her coat, giving the house-elf a pat on the head as if he were a small child and not an elderly magical creature. "I know I'm unannounced," she said. "But I was hoping we could have a little talk."

That didn't sound promising at all.

Walburga sent Kreacher for tea, situating herself and her mother in the drawing room. "You've changed the wainscoting by the piano," her mother said, indicating it. "The new pattern is lovely."

Merlin save her from people who wanted to make nonsensical small talk. Besides which, that wall had to be done after an incident with, well, she supposed it didn't matter why it had to be redone. The point was that it was four years ago, which meant her mother wanted to say something completely different and something she doubted Walburga would like.

"Is there a problem?" Walburga asked.

"No, of course not," her mother said, which sounded irritatingly like being placated. "I simply heard my grandson was quite unwell and thought you might want a little company. I understand that your brother attempting to keep your company went a little awry."

Walburga scowled before she could stop herself. She wasn't about to get a talking to about 'ladylike behaviour', but she couldn't believe that Cygnus had gone tattling to their _mother_. Especially when it had been he who had been out of line.

("I can't believe you're letting him get away with this!" Cygnus had exclaimed, storming into the drawing room as if he lived there and had not just been given admittance by Kreacher.

Walburga was having none of it. Cygnus may have been the youngest, and her younger brother at that, but he was not going to come in there ranting and raving any time he saw fit.

"If you're going to come screeching in here like a toddler in need of a nap, you can get out. I won't tolerate disrespect in this house."

"But you'll tolerate the boy feigning illness?" Cygnus said.

Walburga hadn't told him, but no doubt Druella had her ways of finding these things out. She did things at St. Mungo's and curried favour, because as a house of lesser importance, the Rosiers had to curry favour like a common politician to be noticed.

"He required a healer," Walburga had informed him. "As will you if you come bursting in here calling my son and heir a _liar_.")

This was just like him - accusing her own child of not being able to fight his own battles, then crying to their mother about it. Had he no pride?

"Don't look so upset!" her mother exclaimed. "He knows you're under a lot of stress, and grieving, of course. He knows you didn't mean it."

She meant it enough. "I don't see why he saw fit to come to you about it then," Walburga told her mother, cooly.

"He didn't!" her mother protested. "I was simply having one of my teas with Druella. You know how she likes to have tea with me at least once a week without fail to talk about the girls and the upcoming events. Nothing you'd be interested in."

That made even more sense. If there was an oar to be stuck in, she could absolutely believe that Druella would be the one holding it. It wasn't much better that Cygnus had sent his wife off to do his wailing for him, but it was a step up from doing so himself.

"I'm fine," Walburga replied, firmly. "He will also be fine - it was just a splinching incident."

"Poor love," her mother cooed. "Druella thought it would be a nice idea for the girls to come and see him, since he's feeling poorly. I thought it was a splendid idea."

This was Cygnus forcing her hand, and it was a poorly concealed move. If she let Narcissa and Bellatrix come here, somehow the entire business would be let slip, and Cygnus wouldn't have to worry about not informing his eldest daughter that she could be wasting her life on the whims of a fraud that has murdered those of noble blood.

"He won't be here," Walburga said, firmly.

Her mother bristled. "Oh? I haven't even said a time yet."

Walburga had to think quickly. "He's going to Aunt Cassiopeia's. The healer recommended sea air for his rigor, so I have already made arrangements."

Or she would, the moment her mother left the house. She would have be quick about it.

After saying her goodbyes to her mother, who seemed no less accomplished for having been thwarted, but perhaps the point was simply to make something happen to break the current stalemate. Walburga didn't like that much either, but the future of their house was on the line. It was not the time for rash decision making. She sent an owl, confident in the fact that her eccentric aunt would have no issue having a human child to dote on instead of preoccupying herself with animals.

Then she left to inform her son that he would have a change of venue for the foreseeable future. She knocked on the door to his room; though he had since seen Lucretia, she had no idea if any effects were lingering, and thus, he was resting.

Within seconds, she was met with her son, standing as straight as ever. Recovery may be in motion, but her mother did not need to know the extent.

"You will need to pack," Walburga told him, still looking him over for some lingering sign of illness. She found no evidence either way, so she strode in. "You're going to visit your great aunt to give things time to calm themselves."

Regulus paused a beat before replying. "For how long?"

Why did that matter? The point was he was going. "Do you have some prior engagement?"

"None that are reliant on being here. I was simply wondering," he replied, then after a pause, he added, "After all, it may inform packing decisions."

"Not long," Walburga replied. Though she couldn't be sure of that. "Your uncle is attempting to be indiscrete, and I refuse to bend this situation to his will."

Regulus pursed his lips, then nodded. "When am I leaving?"

"Pack quickly," Walburga replied. He would need to be on his way as soon as the owl returned, or if the owl did not return, as soon as she could send Kreacher to get a definitive answer that had better be in the affirmative. "You can still see the Fawley girl at her convenience. Just make sure you remove all of the animal hair from your robes."

Crinkling his expression slightly, Regulus nodded again. "Of course."

The desire to tell him to be more respectful to his elders died on her lips. Cassiopeia had earned the title of the 'crazy aunt' ten times over, but she lived an uneventful life and enjoyed the company. She doubted he'd get into any trouble up there. Then again, he seemed to have somehow activated some sort of ability to get into trouble where there was none before, and it wouldn't do to underestimate that.

"What would happen, should you ignore a...summons?" Walburga couldn't help her own sneer at the thought that someone thought they had the _right_ to permanently mark her child's skin. Let alone that he could be retrieved like an errant animal with the right whistle. If Cygnus wanted to let his daughter ignore her pride and be doodled on, that was his business. Her son was hers.

"I don't imagine it would be received well," Regulus replied, thinning his mouth.

"Is there a precedent?" Or some sort of outline for what may happen.

"It was made clear that attempting to shorten one's service likewise shortens one's life - and those who have tried have failed… Coincidentally, that was emphasised _after_ joining, rather than before." Regulus's expression soured, slightly. "There is no specification for how many meetings or tasks you are allowed to skip before triggering your own demise, but I suppose it is left ambiguous to deter from doing it at all."

That may have been the most he'd said to her in one go in some time. Walburga would be impressed by the feat, if not for the subject matter. "There will be no demise, one way or another. I expressly forbid it."

Regulus nodded tightly. "That is the goal."

"That is what will happen," Walburga corrected.

"Of course."

Walburga gave a sharp nod, "Then pack. You'll leave as soon as possible."

* * *

October had chilled the northwestern coast of Wales, and Portmeirion's salty breeze was seeping through the long sleeves of Regulus's robes. He had not bothered with a heavy cloak, though if he had to stand outside for any significant period of time, it might be worth pulling it out.

His Aunt Cassiopeia's bizarre house loomed before him - the top half panelled with light blue wood, and the bottom half built with white stone, topped by a roof overhanging a wild, untamed garden visible from the porch. The occupant within was arguably no less odd, and Regulus was fighting to keep the shades of impolite hesitation from his face as he tugged his luggage and rapped three brisk knocks.

Regulus heard soft mewing before he saw any sign of movement through the window, and when Aunt Cass opened the door, she had large orange cat weaving up behind her with another meow - louder this time.

"Your mother said you would be coming." Aunt Cass always sounded a bit distant when she spoke, but her expression looked welcoming enough, even if she didn't spend more than a fleeting moment looking at him as she waved him in.

The house smelled of lavender and perhaps cats, but it was not a bad smell - just odd, like the way everything was brighter here, even if the sunlight was often smothered by clouds.

"Come, come, you're upstairs," she said, waving him to the narrow staircase. The blue half, he thought silently - the same blue as the sky on a clear day, though he supposed it would be awhile before Portmeirion saw another one of those, with autumn in motion and winter closing in.

The orange tabby was still following them from several paces behind, confirmed by several subtle glances back, and when they reached the room he was to stay in, there was a grey and white cat curled right in the middle of the bed.

"This is going to be Regulus's bed while he stays with us," she said, scooping up the still-curled cat into her arms. Judging by the throaty growl, Regulus guessed that the cat wanted to contest this change in ownership - or maybe just the disruption, because the cat had wriggled free and slunk to a different room within a few seconds.

Smothering his own awkwardness, he set his bag on the bed, and another glance at the door revealed the orange cat zooming past in the same direction the first had gone. Years had passed since he last saw his great aunt's hoard of cats, and Regulus didn't recognise either of the two he had seen so far. It was yet to be seen if there were still more.

"Let me know if you need anything," she replied in her distracted tone. He wasn't sure what she was distracted with, but she was already slipping from the room.

Regulus wondered what his mother had said to his great aunt to initiate all of this. Whether his mother's insistence that he visit his great aunt was meant to be a means of punishment or protection remained unclear, given that it was a command, more than anything else. The reception led him to wonder if it had been more of a command to Aunt Cass, too, even if the woman was his mother's aunt, rather than the other way around.

After shutting the door, Regulus looked around the room. The set up was simple: a white bedspread with blue trim, a wooden wardrobe, a dresser, two bedside tables with a few books. Regulus missed his own bookshelf already, but he had brought with him what he needed most, at least.

Among those necessary items was an emerald locket, and though a feeling of risk pattered in his chest, he would rather the horcrux be accessible. His current situation could go sideways at any moment, and it was far easier to keep his Aunt Cass out of his business than it was to sneak past his mother if he were to need something from home in a dire situation.

Not for the first time, Regulus wished that his mother had given him a more clear indication of how long he was meant to stay here, but if he was to unpack and stay awhile, at least this could be seen as a break from the constant questioning.

Without that hawk-eyed attention, he could go where he pleased. Hogsmeade with Abigail was planned for the next day - an outing that was already approved - but the students would not be there late. Perhaps with the close of the day, there would be room for a less approved detour, after all.

* * *

There was something amiss in the front room.

Staying up all hours was still taking a sleepy toll on Sirius, but not enough so that he couldn't hear someone attempting to quietly move in the front room from his position sprawled on top of the bed. It could be Remus back, trying not to wake him, but Remus had gone to go get some potions supplies with Lily, and he'd have heard them speak by now. Sirius slipped his wand between his fingers, padding as quietly as he could to slowly open the door, wand first.

The front door was still open.

Grasping his wand tight, Sirius felt a rush of energy despite his own tiredness and banged the door open to confront the intruder.

He had his wand pointed to James, who was pointing a pencil at him in the same way.

"I thought you were still out!" James exclaimed, dropping his hand.

Sirius followed suit, as the adrenalin already beginning to drain from him. "Obviously, I'm not. What are you doing?"

"Moony left the code book they were using for the wards-dismantling at mine," James said, pointing his head to the scrappy looking book on the table. "I know the Ravenclaws are in rebellion again soon. I would've owled it over if I'd known you'd be about."

This stupid fight was lingering past the point of amusement, side-stepping into inconvenient and downright irritating. "Are you ever going to stop treating me like a jilted fifth year you got a bit handsy with when you'd had a few and now can't bear to look at?"

"I've never done that," James protested.

Sirius merely stared at him.

"All right, so I did it once or twice." James just shrugged. "You're the one in a mood with me. I'm just helping."

"You were being a prick," Sirius said. Just because he was sick of fighting didn't mean he'd waver on whose fault the fighting was. Even knowing what a sore spot the concept of 'home' was, James had still come over and accused him of wanting to go back to that mess. "Are you done being a prick?"

"Are you done pretending you're not in danger?" James asked.

"The only danger I'm in right now is a speccy bloke in my flat threatening me with lead poisoning," Sirius replied.

James looked at him with enough confusion that Sirius realised James had yet to realise what he'd picked up. Sirius shook his head towards James's hand and watched as he did a double take. He then took a step back, looking around for where he had obviously set his wand down somewhere.

"Even with glasses, you're blind." Sirius told him, giving a silent summoning charm that send that James's wand clattering in front of his feet. He bent to pick up, offering it to James who reached over for it.

"What sort of wizard has pencils about anyway?" James said, without any real conviction.

"The kind that wants to write and doesn't want to muck about finding ink." Sirius had to admit, sometimes the Muggles just had better ideas than anyone magical, and he couldn't believe no one magical had thought of it yet.

"So you're still alright with Muggle stuff then," James mumbled.

"I'm going to thump you in a minute," Sirius told him. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with _you_?" James said, his voice tight with an obvious frustration. "Look, you can't tell me you haven't been acting weird the last few months. I'm worried about you."

Part of the building bluster and irritation fell flat. It wasn't that Sirius had been acting strangely, but he guessed it wasn't usual for him to keep things from his mates or have to outthink everything when he was around them. It had been easier when the worlds that inhabited the self he was around his younger brother and the one he was around his mates had remained separate, but they hadn't. Those lines had long been crossed.

"Don't you trust me?" Sirius asked, bluntly.

"Of course I do, don't be daft." James flopped himself on the sofa with a huff. "I don't trust that lot, your relations."

"What, think I'm imperiused or something?" Sirius asked.

"As if anyone would be able to keep you under imperius this long." James scoffed. "They don't need to use the imperius, they just need to suck you into interacting with them and the pit of despair that follows."

Sirius took a couple of steps into the front room, shuffling till he could sit by the table. His legs were starting to feel tired again, now that there was no immediate danger, and he was a shit when he was tired. No need to add fuel to the fire.

"It's different," Sirius told him, as simply as he could.

"How?" James gestured vaguely with his hands. "Don't say it's because of the baby Black. He went out as a bloody Death Eater. He's made his choices clear."

That really wasn't a point in his favour. Sirius didn't know how to explain that one. "I'm sure the wall he hurt is going to press charges," he said, instead.

"It's not funny, Sirius." James replied. "An accident could have happened."

As if he didn't know that. As if he didn't have the same nightmares about that to add to every other nightmare that was going on right now. "I know it's not funny, but he won't do it again."

"He won't do it again?" James said. "Since when do you apologise for Death Eaters?"

"Since they started downing poison to get out of their corpse-munching duties," Sirius told him. "Since he's already said no, which is a miracle in and of itself. He's done."

"He won't be done as long as he's in that house," James said, quieter this time.

"Maybe not," Sirius said.

"You really think they'd be all right with him stopping being a Death Eater?" James asked. "Aren't they half the reason he signed on the evil dotted line?"

Sirius shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't know. They might listen to him."

"You already tried that one," James said, firmly. "They didn't want to know, did they?"

"That was different," Sirius said. Regulus was... _theirs_ more so than he had been, even then. They may listen to one of their own.

"How is it different?" James asked, again.

"It just is," Sirius said.

"Nothing just is," James said, his voice becoming a little harder. "You just don't want to explain it."

"You're not going to get it," Sirius said. How could he possibly? James had been desperately wanted, warmly loved, and had myriad pleasant memories of his childhood and family life.

"I'm your best mate," James said, firmly. "I'm listening."

"It's not your fault you can't get it," Sirius huffed. "You can't help that you had the most perfect parents."

"They weren't _perfect_ ," James said. "They were good people, but they had their bad times, all the same."

"Not with you, they didn't." Sirius said. "You're not going to get why he's usually willing to bend over backwards for them because you don't have to worry about things like family. Yours _love_ you – your parents, your wife, your friends, professors, everyone fucking loves you and always will."

"What's wrong with that?" James asked, defensiveness more so than a sting colouring the tone.

"Nothing!" Sirius threw his hands up. "That's brilliant!"

"I'm very lovable," James added. "Then what-"

"You're never going to have to worry about loving someone who doesn't love you back." Sirius could feel his cheeks burning, and he hoped it wasn't as obvious as it felt. "You'll never know what it feels like to think that you must be doing something wrong, that it's somehow all your fault they don't because for fuck sake, isn't that what a family is supposed to be? People to love you and look out for you?"

"You have that," James said, quietly. Come to think of it, he seemed more concerned than angry. Damn it, that wasn't the point he was trying to make. This was about Regulus, not him. He'd left all of that behind a long time ago.

"I do," Sirius agreed. "But it's hardly anyone I'm related to, is it? What's he got, but Death Eaters and mad women and apathy?"

"It doesn't excuse the decision to the Death Eaters," James said.

"No," Sirius agreed. "But he's already said no to them, maybe for the first time in his life, and he's getting a taste of what it feels like, and maybe, just maybe, realising it's not just me that's a problem. That they're strangling every last use out of him, and he can accept it on their terms or on his or not at all. If he's already lying to Mum, refusing to go do Death Eater chinwags when asked, running about Muggle London, then he already knows the truth. Now it's just a matter of accepting it."

"What do you mean, accepting it?" James asked. "Surely with that amount of evidence and maybe getting treated like shit for once instead of being the ickle, baby favourite, he has to accept that it's all a bunch of crap,"

"You're underestimating his capacity for denial," Sirius said.

"For being an idiot, more like." James replied. "I just don't think he should get a pass because he has a shit family. You did too, you didn't turn into a Death Eater, did you?"

"I knew I had other options," Sirius replied.

"He has to know he does and all," James said.

"Bit hard when even my best mate is ready to string him from the rafters," Sirius said, pointedly. "He's already got his head in the noose, and half the reason you're annoyed is I won't kick the stool out from under him."

"I don't think he should be strung up," James said. "Just a little dangle."

Sirius snorted, looking away for a moment. "I left him to clean up the mess; Dad's dead; Mum's two sickles short of a galleon; Andromeda's side's all varying degrees of mental; and my father's own parents didn't take a stand for their own murdered child. I don't even truly think he cares about blood purity – his problem with your wife seems more to do with the fact she's your wife than anything else. What am I supposed to do, watch as he lets it string him up or try and do something?"

"Be smart about it," James said. "Protect yourself first."

"That's a very Slytherin thing to say," Sirius said. James looked appropriately aghast. "He's being daring and you're recommending self preservation. It's all gotten very confusing."

"I think you should bring it to McGonagall," James said, eventually. "If you think I'm being picky, she'll be fair. It's McGonagall. She's annoyingly fair."

"She also doesn't know him," Sirius said. As fair as she might be, she can't really give an informed opinion on him. "Maybe Meadowes."

"You want to dob him in to a Wizengamot member?" James asked. "I have no complaints about that."

"She's spent time with him. Chances are, by now, she knows he'd rather die than be impolite, let alone hurt people." At least, Sirius hoped it'd been evident enough. They kept asking him back, that had to bode well.

"When?" James asked.

"After the next meeting," Sirius said, raising his hand. "I'm not putting it off. I want it fresh in her mind when she makes a decision. I think she'll agree he needs help more than he needs to be locked up."

"And if you don't like her decision?" James asked,

"Then we can argue it some more and you can threaten me with some pencils." Sirius shrugged. "I know there has to be some consequence, but I won't be responsible for my little brother having his soul removed. Take it or leave it, Prongs."

"Just answer me one more thing," James said, pushing off the sofa. "Why now?"

"He's tried to be brave now." Sirius replied simply. "He needs help. You'd help me if I asked for it."

"You wouldn't be that stupid in the first place," James said, firmly.

Sirius looked around the room, the home he had built for himself and Remus. He thought of the family he'd created here. He thought of all the work he'd done to have a _life_ , the one thing that being banished from the tapestry is supposed to rob you of. "I can remember feeling how he does," Sirius admitted. The first time getting away with it, the intoxicating freedom to do what he liked, the frustration of trying to make his voice heard. "I want to believe I'd never be that stupid, but I was lucky. I figured out early that our mother has a cold, shrivelled block of ice in her chest where her heart should be and that they weren't capable of love, so why should I try to please them? He's just figuring out that he can outlive his usefulness to them, and when he does, they won't want him anymore either. If he's not compliant, they'll let him rot in Azkaban just so they can keep their pride."

"They're disgusting," James said, with feeling.

"Yeah. Or they'll listen to him, decide they can cope with letting him do what he wants as long as he carries the good, pure name on, and there'll be a family civil war when Bellatrix figures it out. Maybe even a full Death Eater civil war." Wishful thinking, given how useful his relatives usually were, but he could hope they still had some sense between them. "Wouldn't that be nice? Let them take chunks out of each other instead of innocent people for a change."

"You really think that'll happen?" James asked.

"Dunno," Sirius replied. "I can't predict what my dearest mother would do hour to hour, let alone on something like this. But if she were capable of loving something, she'd love Regulus, so maybe she'll surprise me and not be completely useless for once."

* * *

October's Hogsmeade weekend had arrived without much fanfare - a key difference between being surrounded by excited students and being surrounded by cats, Regulus supposed. The cats seemed to become excited about some things, especially around eleven o'clock at night, but Hogsmeade was not on that list.

There was no snow yet in the far north of Scotland, but it was significantly chillier than Wales had been, so he was glad he had remembered his thicker cloak and a scarf. The more thoroughly he could avoid a trip home (and the questions it would trigger), the better, at least for now.

He found Abigail bundled in her own cloak and scarf, standing outside the Three Broomsticks, where she had suggested they meet. Abbott was with her again, chattering away. Given his background, he thought he probably ought to be above embarrassment, but he fought to keep it scrubbed from his expression when they both looked over at him.

"Good afternoon," he greeted politely when he was in earshot.

"Hi!" Abigail replied, then cleared her throat. "I mean, good afternoon."

"It's okay to say 'hi', if you prefer," he said, though the word did feel a little strange on his tongue. This occasion, at least, was informal. As long as she did not greet his mother with a 'hi'... that may warrant a clarification when the time came, though he suspected she could guess as much. "Have you eaten? Or would you prefer to walk around first?"

"Walk around," Abigail replied, her cheeks a little redder. It could be the cold, but could also have been some embarrassment over the stumble. "It's been stuffy with exam study at school. I could use some air. Unless you're hungry, and that would be fine. I could wait."

"We can walk first," he said with a little nod. As if on cue, Abbott was ducking away with a little wave, then slipped off into the Hogsmeade bustle, leaving the two of them alone this time.

Starting off such interactions still felt consistently awkward, but as they started walking, Regulus reminded himself they consistently improved, too. At least this facet of life wasn't spinning thoroughly out of control.

"Fresh air helped me, too, though it was more structured with quidditch. How are you feeling about your exams?" he asked.

"That two hours defining whether you learned two years worth of stuff is terrible," Abigail said, her face falling. "I get flustered."

He nodded. "That structure does heighten the pressure… Are there any classes you are more confident in? You are taking four, correct?"

"Not really," Abigail said, scrunching her nose. "I don't like being put on the spot, with facts and figures. I'm not too bad at magical creatures, and runes can be all right because they're distinctive, but every time I try to turn a vole into a teapot, it still has a tail."

"It's fortunate that turning voles into teapots does not come up very often in life after school," he said lightly. "Hopefully, the day away will help."

"Leaving will help," Abigail said, instead. "I'm sure you've done much more exciting things than I have over the last two months."

"I would not characterise the past two months as 'dull', no," he replied, though they had been far more stressful than she would assume. A bit of dullness might be welcome. "All bouts of study have been by choice, which makes a difference. You are mere months away, now." A small smile. "Have you had any time for your drawing?"

"No, or I have, but everything comes out lousy," Abigail said. "I'm sorry, I sound like all I'm doing is complaining. I'm sure I'll miss it when it's all over. What have you been doing?"

"You might. I miss the straightforward simplicity of Hogwarts - and I miss quidditch," he admitted. Most of what he had done since graduation wasn't appropriate for discussion, but after a quick filter, he added, "But since leaving, I've started spending more time with my uncle's Prewett nephews, which has been a positive addition."

"The Prewetts?" Abigail asked, then laughed. "Oh, that's the ones that cause all the trouble, isn't it? My cousin says she sees someone ginger in the Ministry, she's learned to start walking quickly in the other direction because last time, one of the corridors got covered in black ice where they were working, and she slid into an active court with half of Wizengamot staring at her."

Regulus had not seen this particular behaviour first hand, though it did sound consistent with the 'mad experimenter' role they collectively occupied.

"I cannot say that it wholly surprising," he began lightly, "but our time, at least, has been free of mischief." Which was mostly true. Technically, he wasn't with the Prewetts when they had crept around the Hogsmeade shops, and keeping 'improper' company wasn't mischief in itself.

"Are you always free of mischief?" Abigail asked. "Or would you rather be?"

"I suppose it depends on one's definition of mischief. I do not care for the prank variety," Regulus replied. "But there were times I took a loose interpretation to 'restricted section' at school."

"So mischief only if it makes you smarter?" Abigail supposed. "I'm glad I don't have to worry about frog spawn soap, but some things can be funny. As long as no one gets hurt, that's just mean-spirited."

"My experiences with pranks have been mostly negative," Regulus said, a bit dryly as he shook his head. "And by mostly, I mean completely. But I suppose it is possible."

"Oh, yes, I guess it would be." Abigail replied. "It's probably for the best. One of my dorm mates got the giggles so badly every time she saw me after the exploding ink set up that she was sent out of three classes in one day. It took me a while to realise my hands were covered in ink because of that and not just because I managed to do it to myself, which was supposedly very funny to her. I don't get it, but as long as it made her happy, I guess."

Even if it made a friend happy, Regulus did not particularly like the idea of being giggled at, nor the idea of being pranked at all - yet he bit his tongue for a moment. It would most likely be considered rude to call her dorm mate immature, even if it was clearly true. Abigail would still be sharing a room with that person. Checking her face, she did seem sincere in her conclusion and lack of annoyance, so he kept the overt criticism internal for the moment.

"That is a patient perspective," he settled. "I must admit that I do not care for being the focal point of a joke, myself." Potter's regular access to mockery was not something Regulus missed at all from school, but thinking too long on that would only sour his mood, and Abigail did not deserve sour interactions on Potter's account. "I prefer irony over targeted pranks."

"I promise to only make ironic jokes around you," Abigail replied, solemnly. "As soon as I figure out what constitutes an ironic joke."

His mouth quirked up, slightly. "Ironic jokes involve themes like...poetic justice. But you need not limit yourself to irony, of course. If you aren't prone to inflict pranks on the people around you, you should be fine."

"It's probably an ironic joke that I don't get ironic jokes." Abigail heaved a sigh. "Are you looking forward to the holiday season?"

He was not, in fact, looking forward to the holiday season, but explaining why was probably a bit much for a stroll around Hogsmeade. Cramming his family into a single space could be stressful on a normal year, and it was hard to say whether the holiday would improve everyone's mood enough to overlook the brewing trouble. He expected not, but there was time to indulge in some hope.

"The holidays always hold some measure of chaos, but it's a successful year when the good chaos outweighs the less desirable chaos," he replied - vague, perhaps, but not dishonest. "My mother suggested inviting you to the house, when you return from school, should you be interested."

"Oh," Abigail said, looking at him. "What do you think about it?"

"I think it would be a good idea," he said. Uncomfortable, but necessary. It was unlikely to get less stressful, going forward. Sooner was probably better than later… "How do you spend your holidays?"

"We usually go to my Granny's on Christmas eve, because on Christmas day, my older sisters go to their in-laws. I'm hoping since I'm of age, they won't stick me with the little kids this year." Abigail scrunched her face up. "Probably not, though. You're the youngest in your family now, aren't you? I don't remember hearing about any new babies."

"I'm the youngest, yes," Regulus replied with a little nod. "Though I don't recall us ever having a separate children's table, even when we were all younger."

"Maybe everyone was too old for it by then." Abigail suggested. "I can't imagine my mother willingly sitting with a five-year-old and a two-year-old with the good dishes. I'm not entirely sure she trusts me around the good dishes."

"My cousins were all at least six years older than I was." He hesitated just a beat, not sure if Sirius should be addressed, and to what extent. How much did other families realise? The Prewetts didn't seem to grasp the extent of the disownment, and they even had Uncle Ignatius for some measure of perspective… "By the time I was old enough to remember anything, they were older, certainly. My... brother and I must have been given cushions to reach the table when we were small. I don't recall _accidental_ plate-breaking to be a problem - but with the passing years, he started to think that throwing them on purpose was funny - or at least satisfying. No one else felt that way." Shaking his head with a little huff, Regulus added, "Though - on the subject of Sirius - I must take a moment to emphasise that he is off-limits as a topic, particularly in the presence of family. I am bending the rule right now for the purposes of context, but it is no exaggeration when I say it is better to pretend he doesn't exist, as things are right now. It is a… sensitive topic."

"My mum already warned me. I'm not supposed to mention my older sister Agatha either, since she had a baby with-" Abigail lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Tainted blood. But your cousin married a Malfoy, didn't she? They have a tainted line too, but maybe no one's supposed to talk about that either."

Regulus shook his head. "That is not open for discussion either, no. Lucius is from the pureblood branch, which was sufficient."

"Family gatherings are a lot of people trying not to say things, aren't they?" At least, Abigail seemed amused by it. "Maybe we should compare some notes on appropriate conversations we can have ahead of time so no one gets agitated."

His flicked up a little at the corner. "That is probably a good idea."

"Is there a holiday dress code?" Abigail asked.

"Dress robes ought to be appropriate, but there is no specific code beyond that," he replied.

"So no one minds if I show up in yellow and black?" Abigail asked, obviously trying not to smile.

"You would certainly stand out," Regulus said, amusement creeping into his own tone. "One of three non-Slytherins."

"Only three?" Abigail said. "What are the others?"

"My father's mother was a Hufflepuff, and Uncle Ignatius is a Ravenclaw. In that scenario, you would make three," he replied. "Everyone else is a Slytherin - and has been for generations."

"I'm surprised you don't have more Hufflepuffs," Abigail replied. "Loyalty is what we do best."

"Slytherin sorting is tradition." Until Sirius came along.

"How can a sorting be tradition?" Abigail asked, curiously. "Doesn't it change from person to person? Or is it just the same traits get passed down?"

"I expect shared traits are part of it," he replied, keeping his tone light despite the little pang. After his brother's placement in Gryffindor, Regulus had specifically asked for Slytherin, not wanting to risk another disappointment to his already antsy family. Saying as much sounded childish now, but the mere thought of sitting in front of the Great Hall for his sorting had struck him with nausea long before the sorting came around.

Most likely, the hat had not been poised to betray him, but at eleven, he had been far from convinced.

"All the same, the entirety of our direct bloodline has been Slytherin since we came to England over 900 years ago - with that single, unspoken exception," he continued. "So it's something of an expectation, too."

"Oh, so you cheat," Abigail stated.

"It's not _cheating_ ," he corrected, though the sharpness in his chest was already fading to a more casual ruffle. "It's more like... a results-based mindset. Consistently achieving those results doesn't mean cheating."

"But if you go in thinking 'I'll be Slytherin' then you are, it's not really being sorted according to what's in your head, is it? It's just where you want to go," Abigail suggested. "It's not a test where there's a right or wrong answer. No one really asks for Hufflepuff, but we're no that."

"Sometimes, there is a definitively wrong answer," he countered, shaking his head. "But in that example, the person might have been in Slytherin anyway. That wouldn't be cheating, just because they wanted it."

"They might," Abigail nodded. "Or they might not. They'll never never know now. I've never cared what house someone is in as long as they're nice."

"How…" - a brief pause - "...uncomplicated." It felt like the most appropriate word, yet he couldn't help but think that trying to apply that principle to Gideon's puzzle group had been exceptionally complicated. Somehow, he did not think Abigail's experience went that way.

Abigail was quiet for a beat. "Is that bad?"

He shook his head. "Just uncomplicated, not having to worry about it."

"Do you like it when things are complicated?" Abigail asked.

"'Complicated' is the default state, independent of my preferences," he replied, wryly. "But it's a familiar expectation, at least."

"So you wouldn't know if it wasn't complicated, because it always seems like it is." Abigail shook her head. "I don't know if I'm complicated enough."

"It's more that… everything seems to come with a web of factors and their consequences, and consequences to those consequences - sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes good and bad at the same time, depending on the context." He felt a little prickle of self-consciousness as he shrugged.

"Maybe some of my less complicated lifestyle can rub off on yours," Abigail offered. "You might like it a little better."

The welcome chance of reprieve had crossed his mind, though it seemed almost like a betrayal to his family to admit one was needed.

"Perhaps so," he said instead, mouth quirking up slightly at the corner.

Abigail pointed ahead. "Can we go and eat now? I'm famished and can't debate on an empty stomach."

"Of course." Approaching the door of the Three Broomsticks, he held it open for her. "After you. The debate can wait."

* * *

If Andromeda had not been in her own living room, she doubted she would have heard the knock. To her knowledge, no one she knew who would knock would knock in a restrained sort of way. Ted's parents knew she would usually be in the garden, especially in autumn, so they would come there. Ted's friends from work, perhaps, but most of them would know Ted was at work and see him there. Sirius, when he chose to knock, knocked like her door had done him some great harm and he wanted revenge against it. She supposed it could be one of Sirius's friends looking for him, but she doubted many would come to the door rather than using an owl. She supposed it could be a Muggle neighbour; Nymphadora was being a little overzealous in the garden, but part of the appeal of the country was so she could be a child and be as loud as she wanted.

There was also the chance this was a less than friendly visit, seeking to catch her off guard. She reached her hand to her back pocket, finding her wand and gripping it in case she would need to use it. She took a look through the peephole, and realised she had forgotten another option. Regulus had been there, and been told he would be welcome to return. She hadn't been sure he would truly do so; it may not even be a voluntary act, given his current (or past) associations.

She opened the door with one hand, but kept her other hand on her wand. It was with a heavy heart she had to be practical, but she did have to be.

"Hello," she said, as nonchalant as she could manage. "Did you want to come in or are you looking for my husband?"

"If I may," he replied, politely, and with some measure of awkwardness as his eyes flicked down toward her hidden hand then back up to her face.

Andromeda followed his eyeline, but she already knew what he was looking at. Must he make her feel guilty over wanting to defend herself against a possible - if not, probable - threat? He looked like a ten-year-old about to get hexed but with no wand of their own, simply resigned to it occurring whether they like it or not.

"It's not for you." Andromeda raised both her hands to show her palms. She took a step back into her entry way. "You're welcome to come in. I thought for a moment Nymphadora had been terrorising the local muggle population, and I was about to have to memory charm half the village."

"Does that happen often?" he asked, hesitating for only a moment before stepping inside.

"Half the village is rare," Andromeda replied, closing the door behind him as softly as she could, as to not let Nymphadora know they can company. "A twentieth or so is more common. She has trouble tempering her curiosity. Are you well?"

Regulus nodded. "Well enough."

"It's not that I'm not happy to see you," Andromeda said. "But is this a social call or one of purpose?"

For a moment, Regulus was quiet again, lips pressed to a line.

The silence stretched a little too long, but he spoke before she could ask again. "Nothing has changed significantly since you sent the owl," he began, though it was unclear if that was intended to be a reassurance or a complaint. He wasn't quite looking at her face, either. "And owls are not very secure at home right now. I do not particularly like this variety of... excessive attention… but I don't expect it to wane, as things are, which requires a change in approach."

"By excessive attention, do you mean excessive questioning?" Andromeda clarified.

He flattened his mouth a little, then nodded. "More specifically, yes."

In an ever changing political landscape, it was a relief to know things never really changed in some places. "Is the problem the questions themselves or is it because the answers aren't quite aligned with the expected answers?"

"A little bit of both. Providing answers that no one likes just triggers more questions…" More carefully, he added, "My mother is now significantly more curious about every mundane destination, as well as the nature of any expected - or unexpected - interactions." He twitched his nosely, slightly. "She was not pleased with Sirius's impromptu visit."

Andromeda could well imagine. While the idea of returning to her childhood home seemed daunting, she was quite sure it would be more emotionally wrought than traumatising in that regard. "Your mother is not a woman easily pleased. It runs in the family." The form it took was different, but the chiding was the same from her own. "To worry so recently after a loss about potential threats isn't abnormal behaviour. In this case, I imagine Sirius looks like a threat. However, strangleholds don't work, and it may be an adjustment period while she learns that unfortunate lesson."

Regulus nodded. "I understand it; but sharp eyes do make things more difficult." With a little sigh, he added, "I've been shuffled to Aunt Cassiopeia's for the moment. It feels strange, but does admittedly involve fewer questions."

Andromeda snorted, unbidden."Then Sirius isn't the only relation she currently sees as a threat. That's almost reassuring."

"That does seem to be the case… Bella is not a problem yet, but that is unlikely to last. Apparently her father-" Andromeda's too, though he wasn't sure how to refer to such things, "-is eager to tell her, the moment there is an excuse. I do not anticipate that she will take it well."

Didn't that sound just like her father, managing to project his own sense of self-importance upon Bellatrix? "What do you want?" Andromeda asked, wondering if anyone had actually asked him that yet.

"I would like a number of things that are varying degrees of realistic, but leaving the Death Eaters without getting murdered is a high priority at the moment," he said, a bit more dryly than the words would normally suggest.

"I don't think I can do much about that. I do an excellent Bellatrix impression, but my expertise has always been the mental rather than the physical. No less effective if used properly." Narcissa was much better at that too, in addition to being able to emotionally manipulate with the best of people. "Just not particularly helpful when it comes to Death Eaters."

"The mental side can be useful, with the right focus. Bellatrix has provided some occlumency training in the past, so I feel that training has been passably helpful, but it will come as no surprise that I do not wish to continue honing that particular skill with her." He said his head. "I've been referring to some more advanced texts to bolster my knowledge, but it's unnerving. The Dark Lord is not known for his respect for privacy."

"You may practice here if you like. It's been some years since I played around with it all, but I'm sure it's like riding a broom." It was not as if she could really keep many secrets. Andromeda had limited her knowledge of Sirius's evening activities for this purpose. "Bellatrix was a snooping older sister long before she was snooping Death Eater."

Regulus looked slightly hesitant for a moment, then nodded. "Perhaps so… I will think on it. Of the options, I cannot think of one that is safer…" he said in a tone that almost seemed to be thinking out loud, until he looked at her. "No offense intended, but that in itself is still strange."

"No offense taken." There truly wasn't; her life was a little bit strange at the best of times. "A little notice would be nice as the weather turns dismal, if only so I can arrange for Nymphadora to be doing other things. She has the snooping trait, also."

"That sounds fair," Regulus replied. "Sending out notice is admittedly less risky than receiving it."

"No one comes here," Andromeda replied. "No one you would consider it worrisome to know you were here. Well, Sirius, I suppose, but he's busy, so I think you'll be alright."

Regulus slanted his mouth with a little huff. "Sirius knowing things would be less of a problem if he could keep those things to himself - and curb the rash actions that come with them," he said, though the tone was more along the lines of mild exasperation than anything else. "The privacy is appreciated. I don't know how long I will be with Aunt Cass, but that will make it easier for the moment, at least."

Sirius had always had a tendency to speak, then think about what he said rather than the other way around. Once upon a time, Andromeda had a sister that did the same thing. Of the two, she'd take the chronic chatter any day. "It'll depend on what you said to my father on whether he listens," Andromeda suggested. "An iron will has always been the only he respects. Were you very clear?"

"I would have been happy to explain my position and reasoning, but I wasn't invited to the conversation," he replied dryly, rolling his eyes.

"I see," Andromeda replied. Her former aunt was difficult to intuit at times, but she had to remember that sometimes even the best of motivations led to making the same mistakes. They were independent people by nature; they bristled at the loss of control over their own destiny, and hiding away wouldn't help Regulus's case. If he buckled, it would look worse, but if he didn't, he could force them to recognise he had his voice at the table.

"I know you are by nature polite and respectful with your mother," Andromeda said. "However, there are some instances where manners must be foregone in favour of having your own power recognised by those who still think of you as a child, and thus, would tell you what to do and when. Bellatrix is giving them a sense of importance due to position and disposition, but this is not society nor the work of any Dark Lord. This is about family loyalty, and the irony of a disowned person saying this is not lost on me. It's not the same; I made a choice then gave them a choice in how they reacted to it. They have no choice in how they can react to your decision. They must acquiesce. It is your life, your name, your home, and the lineage they have pledged to protect and help prosper. Do you really think, if it truly came down to such a decision, that your mother would take my fathers side over yours?"

"My mother _is_ on my side, at least for the moment. Everyone assumes I will fold every time the subject comes up, but I have _been_ firm with those who are willing to talk to me." His frame tensed, and there was a defensiveness to his tone as the words tumbled out a little more rapidly. "If I storm in and act like Sirius, they will dismiss me even more - especially those who are currently considering what I am saying - and it still wouldn't change Bella's reaction when it comes. Everyone already assumes I'm only 'acting out' because of him. Any change in my behaviour gets questioned, and the more drastic it is, the more they think it's some blood traitor-induced hysteria and not a reasonable position to listen to."

That had been building up for a little while, hadn't it? Perhaps she wasn't the first person to tell him that. The dramatics of the bloodline had not been lost on him at all. The entire idea he was only 'acting out' due to Sirius seemed utterly bizarre; surely, if this were the case, he would have shown some tendency towards exactly that while Sirius was often in close proximity.

"I'm not recommending you storm in _anywhere_. Just that you walk into the room and sit down if it's your life being discussed, which I would argue is more the Uncle Arcturus way of dealing with things." Andromeda held up her hand, though. "I do understand what you're trying to say - that no reasonable change can be seen as reasonable if it's seen as just reactive. They never truly learn that accusing people of not being able to keep their own mind about things, or of being truly weak enough to be controlled by their friends, lovers, professors, hormones, even grief, is just dismissing them as a person of strength, power, and if we leave Sirius from the equation, dignity. Yet you are accused of such a thing - and Bellatrix, to whom it sadly applies, has not been. I don't know if there's a way through to her now, but I also didn't know if you wanted to try, no matter what."

"I _am_ trying." Deflating slightly, he crossed his arms and seemed to be focusing on the wall behind her. "As I said, there are plenty of things I want. They are just varying degrees of realistic. I don't know what they want from me if supporting the family's preferences set them up to think I am a weak-willed child, but now having an opinion contrary to theirs is also weak-willed just because I don't want to serve some megalomaniac that most of _them_ have never lifted a finger for, either."

"Because you didn't join it for you, but for them." Not something Andromeda knew for sure, but the evidence was mounting. "They were struck by a crisis of the family's identity in the world, with only Bellatrix's decision being hailed as righteous and worthy, so undoubtedly to a fourteen-year-old, it looked like salvation. Now you know better. It's very difficult to save people who are not only very prideful of their self sufficiency but also unaware that they need saving in the first place."

"It is," he said, quietly, still frowning at the wall. "I just want to fix it."

"That's a lot to ask of one person, especially one person who didn't break it to begin with." Perhaps it had always been a little broken, but it felt like the last few generations had been zealous in their devotion to the status quo. She could leave it there, but she could also push for an answer to another question.

"The Dark Lord may be inducing the breaking point, but the fracture has existed longer than he has. He has simply taken advantage of it. I think it's something that, at one point in all of our lives, we've experienced this undercurrent of fear, and I worry this is driving my father's actions. He knows there is something to fear, and as such, someone must be to blame. I have been that person; Sirius has been that person; probably every generation has had that person to blame, the anger, upset, the 'Muggle scourge' or the 'wrong sort of pureblood', but it never seems to go away for very long. Even sitting here, with you, speaking of it, I can feel it in the pit of my stomach. Now it seems they have decided either your decision or Bellatrix's is to blame and are trying to figure out which one of you deserves fault rather than looking at why Vol-" Andromeda could not advocate bravery without showing some herself, it was hypocritical. She cleared her throat. "Voldemort...was able to use people - your house and others - in the way he is and how to safeguard against it continuing. It would all be so much easier if they could just remember who they are supposed to protect and who their real enemy is."

Regulus tipped a slight nod. "It would be. That is all I am trying to communicate, for now, and even that is met with resistance."

"They have thick skulls," Andromeda said, shrugging. "I admire the effort and hope I'm wrong about their general inability to accept anything that's not how they say it is."

"I hope the same," he said with a sigh. "I don't want us to have to lose more than we already have for people to pay attention."

"They're not very good at changing or adapting. It seems like once something is decided as right, then it is tradition, and flies in the face of all traditions to do anything else." They wouldn't change. Many had tried and many had found themselves a scorch mark for their troubles. "And it's my taste in men that threatens the fabric of existence, not Bella's. Imagine the Death Eaters being an accepted familial tradition."

The expression on Regulus's face had been pensive as she spoke, and his mouth tugged down into a frown. The frown tightened for a frozen moment, then he replied, "My hope is that this ends before it gets the chance to be."

"A hope I've had from the moment I held my own daughter for the first time," Andromeda said, sadly. It was part of the reason she couldn't lecture Sirius for the recklessness of vigilantism, if it was in fact being even a little effective. "I wish I could do more, but she must come first."

Regulus nodded, slightly. "Of course… I suppose she is running around here somewhere?"

Andromeda lifted her finger and allowed the room to remain quiet for the moment. "Do you hear that?" she said, which was hopefully enough for him to hear occasional _bangs_ in the garden. "It's a mother's habit - you can identify and monitor certain sounds to determine what your child is doing, or worse, if there's no sound at all, something is definitely wrong. She's playing. We put a quaffle and rings in the garden charmed to remain in the area. Every time she hits one, she hits her feet against the stone, but she never lets it stop her. I had hoped the practice would improve her coordination, but I'll take determination instead if I must."

He hesitated for just a beat before asking, "Does she like quidditch?" He was looking toward the sound, now, even if the garden wasn't visible from where they were.

"She does. She's still a little young to like it on the wireless, she doesn't like to sit still for very long, but she loves to play when she gets a chance." Andromeda smiled tightly. "It doesn't happen often. There are few magical families in the area, most twice my age, but letting her loose in more populated areas runs a risk she runs into someone who is less than pleased with my life choices and punishes her for them. Most of the time, she does look rather a lot like me."

Regulus lifted his brow. "Most of the time?"

Andromeda considered keeping the secret, but a petty part of her won out. It wouldn't be the first time. "Would you like to know something that would make my father very upset if he knew of it?"

Regulus paused, then nodded. "I would."

"I have the most magical child imaginable, if one discounts Merlin." Not that she usually would, but Andromeda had to admit that the 'mixed-blood' child being more magical than any in generations was very funny. "It's a work in progress, but as a rule, Nymphadora can naturally transfigure herself to however she chooses to look."

"As in… a metamorphmagus?" he responded, in an uncertain tone that almost seemed to expect her to say there was another way for a child to naturally transfigure herself at will.

"Well done, I wasn't sure if you knew the term." Not that he would have admitted it if he didn't, but Andromeda supposed she ought to remember she was dealing with someone who looked up absolutely everything. "Yes, within an hour of birth."

"Hm." It was a quiet and thoughtful sound as he again looked toward the garden. "Yes, he would absolutely hate that..."

Andromeda followed his eyeline. "You can go over to the window if you'd like," she offered. Perhaps he didn't know if he was allowed to, which was an awful thought but made a kind of sense. He always preferred to be given permission. "You might see her hair fluctuate if she gets annoyed with the falling down, but that's about all she's mastered. She's tried animalistic looks but they come out extremely disturbing, so I've asked her to refrain until she can master human looks. I'm largely telling you because she's decided it's fair game to use me as practice, and while it leaves much to be desired for now, having a double only sounds fun in theory, especially given my... reputation, shall we say."

Flattening his mouth, he nodded as he walked over to the window. "It's not the safest time for it, no." A pause, and then, "Has anyone ever tried anything?"

"With her specifically?" Andromeda said, adjusting herself to look at him. "Not since she was a baby, before we moved here. I've had a few altercations here and there, but we keep our heads down as much as possible, and not many people know where we live. That's why I gave Sirius an earful when he decided showing up without owling was an excellent idea, but it's arguably more annoying that it was probably the right call for a safe place. Since it's family, it's worth an exception, and I would not have offered it to you if I didn't want you to make use of it. It's no Kensington suite or ancestral townhouse, but it is sturdy."

With a frown, Regulus nodded. "I recognise and appreciate the risk… Truthfully, until this year, I assumed that staying out of the way was enough. I would not have expected them to trouble you, but I cannot say I am surprised now."

Andromeda barely contained a snort at that. Most unladylike. "You thought Bella would let go of a grudge?"

"Not let go, but… ignore?" he replied, slanting his mouth in thought. "I can hold a grudge too, but more and more people seem to be forgetting - or ignoring - how hypocritical it is for them to attack purebloods, all things considered… There are probably steps to be taken between suffering offense and initiating violence."

"It is not enough to have pure blood. It must be the right sort of pure blood, and that leeway is where this acceptability has snuck in." Andromeda put on her best falsetto. "'Yes, they are pure, but they're the wrong sort of pure! They're pure of blood but not of culture; they're not affluent; they're blood traitors!' While I go into the biological meaning of pure blood, I think it's safe to say that lineage is not the only factor that goes into being considered 'pure'."

"Of course not." He shook his head, appeared to hesitate for a moment, then added, "I suppose I am just a little unclear on the criteria - as well as the ranking for how offensive something is. I thought I knew well enough, but the more I consider it, the less consistent it seems." He frowned.

"It's not consistent in the slightest," Andromeda said, firmly. It couldn't be. An association with Muggleborns to one person was eccentric, to another it was utter betrayal and burnable offence. "Everyone will give you a different answer. It seems to by and large be criteria from the person who holds the most authority in family things, which in this case would be your mother. If you'll excuse the impudence, consistency is not what she's known for."

"I suppose all I can hope for is that the criteria varies in my favour…" Regulus flattened his mouth, then sighed. "Sometimes I think, what can they really do when I am the only option left - but then…" Frowning more tightly, he shook his head. "I know exactly what they can do. Perhaps everything will work out, or perhaps the efforts may not matter at all."

"I think that depends on what the criteria for the infamous tree being passed from parent to child is," Andromeda replied, her voice low and conspiratorial. "It went to your mother when she married, so it could simply be a matter of...waiting out the clock until it's no longer her decision."

His expression loosened, just slightly, as he met her eyes again. "It does depend… My current strategy is a mixture of 'waiting them out' and 'establishing a small, only mildly offensive foothold,' initially…"

"Mildly offensive in terms of building an offense or in terms of being offensive?" Normally, she would consider it the former, but he had been spending a lot of time with Sirius lately.

"Both," he replied. "I do not consider my opinions to be offensive or aggressive, but I recognise certain sensibilities may interpret them as such "

"Either not offensive enough or too offensive seems to be your current predicament," Andromeda agreed. Depending on the audience, he was royally stuffed no matter what. "I don't think of you particularly aggressive at the best of times. Even your terrible toddler years were met with mild manners. It makes said predicament, and the resulting allegiances, quite startling."

Regulus dipped his chin in a small nod. "That does tend to be the most common response."

"Too many people allow others to change who they are to fit their needs," Andromeda said. "It's a relief to know it's not the case with you."

"Thank you...I don't wish to be a disruption," he began, twisting his mouth slightly, "but I don't think I'm being unreasonable."

"It's unreasonable that you're unable to point out others' unreasonable behaviour and instead, must be adaptable to other people's whims." If they weren't careful, they wouldn't need to enact a disownment; they would drive him away. "You're doing well for such a... difficult situation. As long as you enforce your intrinsic value, others will have to recognise it above the, er, add on value? Surely running around for a dark lord is not of that much interest to them. They've never been proactive about their prejudices before, the line has always been to ignore and rise above. Not muck about."

"The expectations do seem to be different from those they held themselves too," Regulus said, a bit dryly.

"I suppose pointing this out would be considered rude," Andromeda commented.

"Yes, I expect so," he responded. "The truth is not as polite as I would like for it to be, in this case, but that is the way of it."

"Politeness is reserved for those who will be polite in return. I don't think they will be." It was seeming increasingly dire. "You are taking precautions, aren't you? Whatever that should look like to you."

"I try to do so - as much as I can manage." A pressed expression. "I don't expect physical harm from anyone in the family, with the expectation of perhaps Bella, but I am taking care with my whereabouts and phrasing."

"Physicality in not the Black family way of doing things. Bellatrix - and Sirius, though I'd appreciate you not repeating the comparison - are outliers." Andromeda said, frowning as she said it. Just because it was true doesn't mean it would go over well. "The mark of a good Slytherin in a house of Slytherins is the trick of quiet resistance, that the subtle knife does more damage before you notice something is wrong. Brutality is the poor man's substitute for talent and cunning."

"That is essentially what I have been trying to tell Sirius," he said, rolling his eyes. "I don't know how fully it has sunk in, but at least he hasn't stormed the house in awhile."

"Loathe as I think any of them would be to admit it, it's not just Sirius who has a tendency to favour the roar and pounce over poison and patience. It doesn't mean they're incapable of being calm or subtle, and certainly poison is no less dangerous than pouncing, but it's just a different response." Andromeda nodded her head out to the garden. "I have the most easy-going, if somewhat wild, child, but if she thinks she can get around me or her father by some creative storytelling, she will, and if she feels backed into a corner, she will also lash out verbally and physically, even though it's entirely counterproductive to do so. However, I know she doesn't act without reason - whether it's because she wants to see what she can get away with lying about, something you're trying out yourself, or because she feels threatened in some way and wants to stand her ground or ward off whatever it is that's bothering her. I don't think it's a matter of whether or not it will 'sink in' When it comes to this, Sirius cannot be objective; he's too threatened, and you are very difficult to read. I don't know if you understand that the threat against you is no less effective because it's unlikely to be physical, but I think you do, don't you?"

"I understand that all too well, yes," he replied, dryly. "It has been difficult to think about anything else since I was ten."

"At least they're consistent," Andromeda replied. "Besides which, I don't believe you'd fold if your back were truly against the wall. I don't need to be a mind reader to know you're fed up with being treated as if a stranger's word is more important than your own, but I think if the threat were unavoidable, you'd lash out right back the same as any of us."

"At least someone doesn't assume I will immediately fold," he muttered.

"You're sitting here," Andromeda reminded him.

He met her eyes. "I am."

"That's the farthest thing from folding," Andromeda told him. "You're not forced to be here, so it means a great deal that you choose to be."

"I hope I can do so again," he said, nodding with a slightly lighter expression. "I must take care with my mother's oversight when I return home, but for now, at least, there is some freedom of movement. There may not be much I can do to keep certain people out of my head, but I would like to try, nonetheless."

"You do need to practice your occlumency then," Andromeda said. "Bella is a nosy cow at times."

"That is not exactly how I would have phrased it, but I would like to keep my mind to myself, yes," he said, wryly.

"You've never had sisters, but you have a brother." At least, Andromeda thought he still counted. Was there a polite way to ask that? "One who has no concept of boundaries or sanctity of space. Now add on the ability to rifle through your mind and being in both the same house and the same dorm. I don't know how Narcissa dealt with it - or perhaps she too decided to guard her mind from nosy elder sisters."

"That was not a problem with Sirius, no," Regulus admitted. "I would not say he has much concept for privacy with how regularly he ignored the process of knocking, but legilimency was never a concern, at least."

"He doesn't have the patience to unpeel the layers of the mind," Andromeda replied. Truly, Andromeda was surprised that Bellatrix _did_. "But you might. I don't want to rush you off, but it is too quiet in the garden for anything good to be happening, and I think it's time for Nymphadora to come inside."

Regulus nodded, looking out the window for a passing moment before shifting back a few steps.

"I'll be in touch, as much as is possible," he said, and with a brief exchange of goodbyes, he was gone.

* * *

Experience ought to have taught Cygnus that attempting to have a family dinner with his youngest daughter and wife anywhere from October to December would involve the occasion devolving into a miniature party planning committee. He appreciated the skill; no one did it better than they did, but it only took a look at his eldest daughter to know she was as bored with the turn of events as he was. It wasn't common they would get together like this now; Bellatrix was busy out there fighting for the rights of all magical people, and Narcissa was still bordering newly wed enough that she preferred the company of her husband to anyone else.

"Cygnus!" Druella called, shaking her head slightly in exasperation. "You're not listening."

"Am I supposed to have an opinion on decorations or food or frivolities?" Cygnus asked.

"Of course not," Druella said. "But Narcissa is asking about whether or not we could hold it in the Manor this year."

Hold their family party in the house of a man – if he could decently be called such a thing – who didn't bear their name? Not bloody likely. "What's wrong with Grimmauld Place?"

"It may be a little insensitive," Druella said, in a loud whisper. "Given that your sister is obviously still in bereavement and won't appreciate the intrusion."

"On the contrary," Cygnus replied. "It's more of a reason for things to go back to normal, so she doesn't mope around and end up herding cats like my aunt."

Narcissa herself looked unsure. "It could be more convenient, especially with Regulus's ill health of late."

Cygnus snorted in derision.

"He hasn't been himself at all," Druella said, nodding solemnly.

"Don't tell me you're buying into this illness business," Cygnus could barely contain himself. "It's an excuse to be idle on duties, and you know it."

"He's always been very dutiful," Druella said. "I think it's just his age. He's confused. Bella, darling, why don't you ask him how he is? You've gotten quite close lately, haven't you?"

Their eldest turned her bored expression toward Druella. "Dutiful behavior in the past does nothing for what needs to be accomplished now, and he is due for a reminder. The suspicious timing has not escaped me." Cygnus could see she was turning her attention to him now. "Have they attempted to label this mysterious 'illness'?"

Curse of the yellow belly, if you asked him. Which no one was doing, but absolutely should be. "One that requires sea air," Cygnus replied. "I don't know why they think it'll help."

Bellatrix rolled her eyes. "So not a real one, then. I will speak to him."

"If you're _allowed_ to," Cygnus replied. It was absurd. They were family. "Your grandmother wasn't."

"Allowed?" Bellatrix scoffed. "If I must shoulder the task of toughening him up, then I will speak to him when I please. He has shown some improvement, but I won't tolerate regression."

If his sister were to open her legs wide enough, Cygnus wondered if he'd regress back into the womb given how much of a baby he was being. "Nor should you," Cygnus exchanged a look with his wife. Caught between what had been agreed and what absolutely needed to happen, what needed should take precedence. "But just in case, I wouldn't owl ahead."


	14. Unburied

Note: Thank you, everyone, for your patience with this update! 2020 has been a crazy year so far. We hope everyone is staying safe with the pandemic, and that you enjoy this next chapter!

 **Chapter 14: Unburied**

* * *

"How long has it been, since last you visited?"

His cousin's tone was as delicate as the blown glass bird staring at him from the little table next to her bookcase, but Regulus knew if he were to actually look Narcissa in the face right now, her grey eyes would be firmer than they were soft.

She had welcomed him into her home under the pretense of a few new books she thought he might like, but given his decline of more than one invitation as of late, he suspected it was, in fact, more a pretense than anything else. He had scarcely been back at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place for a day when the requests for attention had begun, and although he did not want to be paranoid about the intentions of everyone's interest, it was nothing if not strange.

The Malfoy Manor's library was brimming with beautiful texts set in ornate shelves, but however bright his cousin might be, neither she nor Lucius were voracious readers for leisure. They were, however, the collector sort, and the gesture was still a notch above trying to invite him to tea with her and her mother again, so he'd bitten.

"Last winter, as I recall," Regulus replied. Before his father's death. It was nearly winter again - the first of November. Too much had happened.

"Nearly a year," Naricssa said, shaking her head. Her tone was muted, but it sounded more genuine that time, and he looked over to see she was holding a small, leather-bound book in one hand. "I suppose you've been very busy with your friends, now that you've finished school?"

"Sometimes," he said, a bit thickly, "and sometimes with other things - not always so enjoyable."

If his cousin had thought to ask him about the other things, she decided against it. Naricssa loved asking questions, which made him wonder, not for the first time, how much of the situation had leaked out from his aunt and uncle's 'confidence' and into his cousins' pool of knowledge. Whatever she might have been thinking, she merely held out the book.

"Hopefully this will be more enjoyable. Rodolphus said it is a collection of arcane spells and the purebloods who created them," she said as he took it - about the length of his hand from palm to fingertip with no visible title.

"After all," came a stiffer drawl from behind him, and Regulus fought a startle, "you haven't been very responsive when we've tried to call."

Regulus did not have to turn around to recognise his eldest cousin's voice, but he turned anyway, knowing it would be worse to snub her now.

"Although I intend no offense, following a bout of illness, I like to have time to myself, too," he replied, his tone carefully even as he slipped the book into the pocket of his robes. He could see Bellatrix was not bothering to wrap her mood in gentleness, but she never did, and he might have been more unnerved if she were to try.

"An illness, was it?" Bellatrix said with a sort of muted mockery.

No one could have mistaken her tone for sincerity, and though he had intended no reaction, Regulus flattened his mouth just slightly as he looked back to Narcissa. Considering it was her house, he had a hard time believing she didn't know her elder sister was lurking about, but Bellatrix's commentary probably seemed less threatening from where Narcissa stood.

"Thank you for the book," he began. "I will be-"

"Before you vanish again, we are due for a chat," Bellatrix interrupted. "Wouldn't want you to fall ill again upon leaving my dear sister's home."

Regulus batted off the sourness threatening to flicker on his face, holding his expression still as Bellatrix steered him off in the general direction of the foyer. They were descending the stairs when she spoke again.

"Naricssa may be willing to treat you gently, but do not expect this cowardice to be tolerated any longer," Bellatrix said without preamble, the words cracking like a whip.

Stubbornly, Regulus fought a wince, then cooly replied, "It isn't cowardice."

"Then tell me, Regulus, why my father would be under the impression that you are faking this bout of illness to shirk your duties to our Lord?"

Pointing out either truth - that his Uncle Cygnus was being unreasonable, and that their Lord did not deserve Regulus's duties as things were - was only going to escalate the situation, so instead, Regulus let the question sit for just a beat longer before replying.

"Whatever reality your father might be proposing as true, I _was_ ill, when last I was called upon."

"And I suppose the 'sea air' cured you?" Bellatrix rolled her eyes, and although Regulus wanted to say that he had not asked to visit their great aunt, instead he just pinched his mouth as she continued. "I stick out my neck for you, and I would expect our heir to, at the very least, not _embarrass_ me actively. You were finally starting to show some initiative, this past spring, but I have seen nothing come of those dark arts books you borrowed. Burying yourself in theory does nothing for our cause if you never come out and use it."

Annoyance prickled his expression. Regulus did not care for the direction of this lecture, nor was it completely fair. Those dark arts texts had been very key in pinning a name on the Horcruxes, but she would not thank him for putting that theory into practice.

"If you continue hiding from your responsibilities like a child, you will no longer be trusted with anything of consequence," she continued, sharply. "Consider yourself lucky that the Dark Lord is still entrusting me with his secrets, despite you leaving your partner to complete a mission alone. Trust me when I say you don't want to become a burden."

The threat was clear and ought to have monopolised his attention, but like a little flag shooting up in alert, his thoughts snagged on something else. "I do not wish to be a burden," he replied, honestly. "You must be relieved to remain unaffected. Is it a secret mission?"

"Don't expect to be privy to the Dark Lord's treasures if you aren't willing to work for them," came her haughty reply.

The chilly silence was interrupted by a searing sting on his arm, as irritatingly familiar as it was irritatingly timed. Halloween had passed without trouble, the night before, and he had been naive to think the Death Eaters would stay quiet for much longer.

"Perfect," she said.

He did not like the way his cousin smiled at him in a way that was undoubtedly meant to make him feel trapped. He hated that it was working.

Three options presented themselves when - mere seconds later - Bellatrix grabbed Regulus by the arm and very literally dragged him from the manor. A gloomy cemetery had been their destination, and when she picked up a branch to transfigure it into a mask for him - most likely to avoid a trip back to his house, where he might formulate an excuse to stay - the expectations had rapidly fallen into place.

She was, of course, correct in her assumption of his intentions, but accuracy made her precaution no less annoying.

The first option available to him was to loudly object - a route with a high likelihood of maiming or murder, in the present company. Unsurprisingly, they were not the only Death Eaters present. The second was to push down his convictions again to force his way through another attack he didn't believe in so Bellatrix would leave him alone. The third was perhaps not the boldest, and the risk it brought was arguably higher than simply finding a corner of the cemetary to look busy in, making it - strictly speaking - the least logical.

The pooling of their ranks did not take long to build up, and on Bellatrix's command, a wave of Death Eaters flooded the grounds, swarming inward from the gates. There were civilians everywhere, walking solemnly through the towering statues and gravestones with candles in hand, but it took only seconds for chaos to erupt.

Pulling his hood further down, Regulus flicked his eyes around, watching for anyone watching _him_ , then shuffled behind the nearest headstone - which, as it turned out, was at least a head taller than he was. The cloud-smeared sun was still brushing the horizon, but darkness was already descending, and Regulus knew he didn't have long before his presence - or his absence - was noted.

Option three was the riskiest, but in an array of risks, at least this one had the slightest chance of some payoff. Any secret of Bella's was a secret he needed to know, and he was running out of time.

With a crack, Regulus disappeared.

* * *

The call came in when Gideon was done for the day, but had yet to vacate the Ministry premises. Getting a bird call at work was never the most ideal of circumstances, and Gideon knew well that no one would risk it if there weren't a dire situation. Luckily, white wisps often followed experimental magic, and Gideon was able to duck into one of the empty testing rooms. No voice accompanied the patronus, which meant the person – judging by the loose shape, Frank – didn't want to risk exposure. Just a very clear view of a signpost – Foxglove Hill Cemetery – and the risen Dark Mark. It took Gideon a minute or three to remember where that was. He was sure he'd seen the sign before, and while he could have brought up a map, it was somewhere recently.

It was near Hogsmeade, he realised a beat later. Foxglove Hill's herb garden had been involved in one of Dorcas's quest clues, so it couldn't be that far from Hogsmeade. On his way to the apparition point, Gideon wondered idly what exactly the citizens of Hogsmeade had done now. Had Rosmerta refused to bow to pressure not to serve muggleborns? Had Honeydukes made candied dark marks again? Perhaps Voldemort had a bad date experience in Madam Puddifoot's.

A cemetery, though.

That question answered itself when Gideon skidded on the mud and gunk to take a look at the gates. Even if there wasn't a great big dark mark hovering, the screams inside would have been a large indicator something was wrong. Gideon could have kicked himself for not remembering that some of the older northern witches and wizards had a tradition of lighting candles and walking around the graves to see their future. The old wives tale was that from sundown on Halloween till sundown November 1st, the veil between the living and the dead was at its weakest, and you could do things that you wouldn't normally be able to.

Hearing a noise behind him, Gideon spun on his heel to find Edgar Bones staring at him.

"Either put that wand away from my nose or get in there and use it!"

Gideon didn't need to be told twice. It sounded so simple – round up the stragglers the Death Eaters were targeting and try to take out a couple of Death Eaters while he was at it.

Except it wasn't that simple at all.

No more than 15 steps inside the place and Gideon found his foot stuck in the mud of an overturned grave. Were Death Eaters grave robbing now? No – that wasn't mud – that was a decomposing hand –

 _Inferi!_

Fire, inferi don't like fire – but his foot was in the way, and he'd get some bad burns himself or end up like Mad-Eye. Of course, he could also get shredded and end up a reanimated corpse –

Gideon had been too busy trying to figure out a way of getting his foot away from the inferi that was clinging onto him like a bad date that he didn't see the person come running in front of him, feeling them both hit the ground with a _squelch_. The light of a curse went whizzing past where he had been moments before. Gideon looked down, panicked for a moment that his leg hadn't made the journey with him, but while his shoe was a goner, his sock was holding on like a champ.

"Thanks," he said, with a quick nod as Frank rolled over with a nod.

There'd be no time for chatting – besides which, might look a bit weird for an Auror to stop mid-battle for a chat with a civilian who was just helping out and happened to be here.

Now that he could look around, he could see four types of people – ones making a break for it or hiding, ones in cloaks and masks, Aurors, and the slouching, decomposing remains trailing after them. Some of the runners could be Order members with glamours, moving too quickly for him to pinpoint any, but he didn't have the time to take a headcount.

He fired off a couple of shots towards one of the cloaked figures, then a fire stream at an inferi. He looked down to see that there were still a few undisturbed graves – old names, pure names, of course. This reeked of terror tactics.

To his left, he saw someone who looked worryingly like himself take a white spell to the chest and blood spatter to one side. He was half camouflaged by a Grindelwald war memorial, so he crouched behind it to watch the Death Eater get closer. Then Gideon ran over, throwing a bone-shattering curse in the direction of the caster and pulled his brother up, trying to swerve them away from chaos.

When had he got here? It didn't matter, not really. They were going to have to leave. He was bleeding badly enough that there were drips coming down Gideon's grip.

"I'm _fine_!" Fabian insisted, pushing back pitifully. It bordered on whining.

"I'm going to get you to the hospital. Stop squirming; you're worse than Fred and George," Gideon said, placing his hand over the blood seeping through his clothes. He took one last look as he saw a Death Eater marching towards them, wand aloft.

A spell hit the spot mere seconds after the _crack!_ of apparition took them both to the hospital.

* * *

Objectively speaking, breaking into his eldest cousin's home was akin to a suicide mission when he did not know exactly what he was looking for, but as treacherous as it felt, Regulus could not fathom doing anything else with such a rare opportunity - one with Bellatrix and Rodolphus gone for at least a little while.

Perhaps her own 'secret treasure'' from the Dark Lord was nothing significant at all. Perhaps it was a torture device, or a bluff to make Regulus feel badly about himself, but if there was even the slimmest chance that Regulus was not the only person in his family who had been roped into the Dark Lord's shrouded plans for immortality, that chance couldn't be ignored.

With the way his life was spiraling out of control, there was unlikely to be another.

The protective enchantments surrounding the Lestrange Manor welcomed him, as they always did, and it took only a few minutes to dismantle the series of alarm wards set up at the entrance, part way along the pathway leading to the manor - marked by an imposing gargoyle of a statue, for those who know to watch for it - and the last at the front door itself. They used a rather archaic form of the enchantment, but if Regulus's father had prepared him for anything, it was for identifying, using, and dismantling obscure protections.

" _Homenum Revelio_ " Regulus whispered with a swish of his wand, once the heavy wooden door had closed behind him.

No humans in the vicinity, which was good, though Regulus would have been surprised to learn otherwise. Bellatrix and Rodolphus had both been at the cemetery, along with Rabastan, and Rodolphus's parents had vacated years ago.

Their house-elf Lorky would be roaming the place - a gamble that set Regulus on edge. Cordial though their interactions always were, one order from Bellatrix or Rodolphus would demand the truth, and even an incomplete understanding of Regulus's presence was a problem. Regulus wasn't supposed to be here at all.

After casting a disillusionment charm on himself - something he ought to have done before stepping onto the grounds at all - Regulus stuffed the mask in a pocket to get some visibility back. With his vision restored and his visage shrouded, Regulus strode up the stairs that branched off of the foyer, moving as quickly and quietly as he could manage. His mind reeled with the most efficient places to check. Depending on what the Horcrux was, it could be casually lying around anywhere, but Bellatrix had sounded too smug about its importance for that to make sense.

No, important things went behind blood magic spells, nested in hidden rooms behind the paintings. If he had time for one stop, that was it.

Hugging the walls, Regulus navigated past an uncomfortable number of rooms. Though the doors were all closed, he knew that each was filled with dark wooden furniture that held any number of dark objects and knickknacks, and with each door, he reminded himself he did not have time to be thorough. If he survived, he could more easily follow up in unrestricted areas...

In the third upstairs hallway, Regulus's heart leapt up into his throat when he spotted Lorky dusting a display table. Next to that table was the painting that concealed the Lestrange's storage room, and although Lorky was facing away, Regulus froze stiff.

Flattened against the wall, he did not feel particularly hidden, but however tempting it was to crouch into the smallest ball manageable, movement was the biggest risk. The charm did nothing for invisibility, just camouflage, and just because something was the same color and texture didn't mean that movements weren't detectable…

The more he mentally urged the elf to speed up the cleaning, the slower time seemed to creep. The hammering in his chest had started to slow when at last Lorky turned around and started a path straight for Regulus.

Immediately, the chest-hammering clamoured to action again, and he felt his leg twitch.

Holding his breath, Regulus watched the elf approach. For a horrifying moment, Lorky seemed to be turning towards Regulus, only to open the door just to his left and walk inside. Regulus spared only a brief glance to confirm the elf was setting to work inside before splitting away towards the hung painting, and only then did he allow himself another breath.

Two wizards were locked in an endless duel in the painting, splashed with dark colors and a flashing storm in the background. Bellatrix had taken him inside before. Blood magic bound it shut.

After checking to make sure Lorky hadn't wandered out again, Regulus turned back to the painting with his lips flattened to a line, then flattened his palm to the 'flash' of green light that split across the painting's surface. What should have been solid instead enveloped his hand up to the wrist. The sting was sharp and sudden as something gripped his hand in place for a few miserable seconds, cutting into his palm. Steeling against a wince, he murmured the spell, committed to memory some months ago - back before the Horcruxes were his problem, and curiosity was the greatest of his motivations, within the walls of his eldest cousin's manor.

When at last his hand released, he could feel blood on his palm, but when he looked, the blood looked just as much like the floor as the skin on his palm did.

Not wanting to tempt fate further, he stepped into the room and lit it up. The surfaces were bedecked with any number of illegal dark objects, restricted remnants of endangered magical creatures, and some things Regulus did not want to spend too much time trying to identify.

He had been investigating and discarding various objects for several anxiety-inducing minutes when the glint of gold caught his eye at the bottom of a large velvet bag.

Regulus's breath caught in his throat when he felt as much as saw the badger engraved on the bowl of the goblet. Without delay, his mind flashed back to the locket, to the old portrait he'd seen of the Founders and the rumours of their lingering possessions. How thematic, it was.

It surprised him, the dread that settled in his stomach as his hand clenched the stem of the cup.

More than one Horcrux. He had never wanted to be wrong so badly in his life.

Nerves rattled in his stomach as he stepped away from the bag and held the cup in front of him, wand clasped in the other hand. Horcruxes were irritatingly sturdy…

" _Incendio_ ," he said, wand pointed inside the goblet. The fingers holding the cup twitched slightly at the sudden heat, but the flames dissipated in seconds without the slightest sign of a scorch.

He attempted slicing spells next - careful to avoid his hands and the surrounding clutter - followed by an effort to bend the stem, but the goblet looked as untouched as it had started.

"Perhaps you are the secret, after all," Regulus murmured to himself. "I wonder if she would be jealous I got Slytherin's."

A question destined to go unanswered - or rather, he hoped it was.

Knowing Bellatrix would notice the cup missing - regardless of whether she knew what it _actually_ was - he needed a decoy. Impromptu as this particular heist had turned out to be, he had no cups to charm, and using anything of Bella's, whether from inside this room or out, seemed a noticeable risk, were anyone to figure out they should be looking for anything out of place.

He had never attempted to both transfigure and charm an item as a decoy, but as he pulled out the small book in his pocket, he supposed now was the time to try. Flipping to the back, he found the blank page that followed the index, and with a muttered apology, carefully tore it out. The offense felt criminal, but panic was still teetering at the edge of his nerves, and he couldn't stop to feel guilty. Breathing deeply, he held up the page.

Transfiguring the paper into a goblet was easy enough. Turning things to goblets was a low-level spell for children, and shape was less important when it was merely a base. The charm to disguise it as a decoy took longer, adjusting and recasting until he could not visually tell the difference between the original and his own.

How long the spell would hold, he didn't know, but as he shoved the decoy back in the velvet bag, he hoped it was long enough.

Of more immediate concern, Regulus also had no idea how long he had been gone from the cemetery attack, but he knew he had to be pushing the timing. As much as his 'comrades' seemed to delight in such activities, they could only terrorise for so long before Aurors made a nuisance of themselves.

The trip out of the manor felt faster than his entrance, and though he could practically feel his bounty burning rebelliously in his cloak, he was soon back in the cemetery - to find fewer people but more screaming, a Dark Mark unfurling in the sky, and the distinct scarlet robes of Aurors fighting-

-inferi?

Nausea swept over him like a dizzying punch as he leaned back against a particularly tall memorial headstone. Behind his eyelids, he saw splashes of cold water, and for a panicked moment, thought hands were grabbing at him again - only to realise a few shaky breaths later that it was his own hands clutching his face.

A series of realisations struck then - first that he could _feel_ his face, meaning he had no mask on in the middle of an Auror swarm. Panicked, he pulled it from his cloak, and it was then that he noticed his hands and clothing looked distinctly like a cemetery.

Somehow, the disillusionment charm did nothing to sooth the panic sweeping through him like an ice storm.

The charm had been lifted for no more than 30 seconds when he felt a tight grip on his arm, and he couldn't stop the panicked sound that escaped his throat.

"Don't be such a child. It's like you've never seen a battle before."

The berating tone belonged to Bellatrix, which was only slightly better than an Auror or an inferius, at that moment.

"We're regrouping at my residence," she continued, which only made him feel dizzier, but he somehow managed a numb nod. "We've identified some vigilantes to hunt, tonight, and I have plans for you."

Even before they apparated out, Regulus knew he wasn't going to like those plans at all.

* * *

There was a heaviness to his bones as Gideon shuffled off home from St. Mungo's, leaving his brother in more capable hands than his own. Most of the time, they tried to keep vigilante related injuries out of the already stretched hospital staff, but other times, like today, they just had to give in and admit they needed the help. There would be questions tomorrow, but a plan for what to say ('They were in Hogsmeade perusing the goods in Zonko's for their nephews when they heard a commotion, and being the upstanding citizens that they were, went to go and see what they could do to help!') was already settled. With a quick update to Benjy, Gideon felt confident enough that Fabian would get the story before someone came sniffing around for a story or just to yell at them for going and getting involved when there were trained Aurors, or more likely a squad of patrol plods, present.

Frank had done so for Emmeline Vance and Marlene McKinnon when they had run afoul of some Death Eaters in Knockturn, to which the kids had made a drinking game of the stock phrases the local plods had to say to them if they were caught and what appropriate (or often, inappropriate but not illegal) responses would send them on their merry way without dobbing any of their own people in.

However, while there was no sleep for the wicked, there also appeared to be a lack of breaks for vigilantism.

Gideon took the time to do his report now, so it could be corroborated when they went around the injured. Maybe someone saw something, a clue. Fabian would be fine in a day or so with the healers descended on him, once they'd gotten enough blood replishnishments in him and made sure nothing was cursed, considering it was Death Eaters. It was a hair's breadth of being serious, which made his heart slam in his chest every time he thought of it. He didn't want to think of how Molly would react. He needed sleep, eyes feeling raw and papery, now that the adrenalin had faded.

There was a somewhat familiar owl when he returned home. Gideon considered forgoing responding, but the weather was not inviting, and leaving the poor creature out there could be considered cruel. Enclosed, a note from Regulus Black saying that he needed to speak to him urgently. Was it more or less urgent than the need for rest? That seemed a rude line of thought, considering that Regulus was not a demanding person and probably didn't make requests lightly. But what could require his attention so immediately? With some alarm, he hoped their shared aunt and uncle were well and hadn't gotten on the wrong side of neutrality, resulting in 'accidents'.

Gideon wrote back that Regulus could come over, providing an address and requested that he not judge the clutter. Half finished ideas often lay about their collective living space, with piles high enough that he had once lost a date in one and completely ruined the moment. He scanned the place for anything obviously Order related, but they were usually careful about the common area for that sort of thing.

He didn't have to wait long. It seemed that whatever Regulus required was in fact something he needed right _now_ as the door was given three sharp knocks, as instructed in the letter.

"Hello. Please excuse the mess of me as well as the place," Gideon said, as he opened the door to find the young man. "Do you want in?"

Regulus nodded and stepped inside, mouth pressed to a thin line. There was another beat of silence before he spoke, looking a bit more pale than usual.

"Sudden drop ins are not my preference, but…" Regulus glanced around. "You are alone, yes?"

"Aside from you, yes." That certainly made it sound much more illicit.

Regulus delayed for just a beat before continuing, uncomfortably, "The Death Eaters have identified you and your brother as vigilantes - and as targets, to prove a point…" Crossing his arms across his chest, he added, "I thought you might want to know."

There was a beat of silence before Gideon could process all of that. "I do want to know," he said, because of course he did. It wasn't ideal, but they also weren't the first people to have their identities known. He'd have to send some owls, make sure someone made sure no dodgy healers came close. There were several other questions that came from that - had he been around Bellatrix Lestrange and decided to say something about what he had heard? If so, that was at least encouraging for his character. Or one of the others of a similar grouping, of that matter. It would make the family a lot more sticky too, for that matter. "Should you have told me that?"

"Depends on who you ask," Regulus replied, his mouth tightening for a moment. "I feel I should, but many would disagree."

At least that indicated he cared enough to go against popular opinion. "That's going to make things difficult for you," Gideon said, because it would whether or not it was Death Eaters or with the social groups. "So, thank you."

"While I appreciate the sentiment, things have been difficult for a while, now," Regulus said, his tone flattening as his crossed arms stiffened a little. "With all the damage being done, I want to at least try to minimise it where I can."

"You're right, they have. Blood really doesn't buy you the level of immunity people to tend to assume." Regulus would know that, of anyone. A smidge more hesitant, Gideon spoke up again. "I hope this doesn't change our relationship too much."

"My opinion of you remains unchanged, though this does stomp on the last traces of my plausible deniability." Regulus shook his head, and he was looking at some spot past Gideon now. "'Just don't get caught' remains a running theme - the stakes continue to rise, as the years pass."

"Not to belabour the point, but completely unchanged?" GIdeon pressed. He didn't want to bite the hand, but he found it a little surprising. Most people had strong feelings about vigilantism. "It's a big secret to keep."

"It is," Regulus agreed, with a tiny nod. "I don't mean to minimise the seriousness of the situation. I suppose big, life-threatening secrets just feel more normal than not, right now."

"Isn't that a depressing line of thought?" Gideon would have rolled his eyes, but he thought it might send the impression he wasn't appreciative of the warning. "It wasn't personal. I thought I was doing a decent job of keeping the whole thing quiet."

"You were - but showing up to Death Eater attacks when you aren't an Auror does tip off some involvement."

"I'm not usually so public," Gideon admitted. "But I'm not very good at ignoring a scream for help. A little extra danger and a relocation is an acceptable enough price for that. I sound very idealistic when I put it like that, don't I? I'm going to lose the title of the practical one if that gets out."

"I don't consider myself idealistic, but I can relate to the feeling," Regulus said, shifting slightly.

"Would it be pushing it to ask how you knew that?" Gideon asked. "I'm wondering how quickly I should be moving."

"From a Death Eater," he said, frowning at the floor. "So it's reliable."

"Someone who knows where I live or could easily find out was more what I was asking," Gideon amended. It could put him in a horrible position, but...

"I wouldn't say it matters much, whether or not the Death Eaters already know where you live. Moving delays the attempt, but when motivated, they figure it out, eventually." Regulus was still looking at the floor, his brow pinching, now. "Civilian targets, professional targets, vigilante targets, defector targets - someone always knows _someone_ who can track down the information, whether willingly or by coercion."

Flicking his eyes up, the look lingered for no more than a second before dropping again. "But that wasn't very reassuring, I suppose," Regulus continued. "I want to believe it's possible, yet at the same time, assuming safety is probably an indication that you're not…"

"I don't want reassurance." Gideon tried to backpedal the words almost immediately. They were too blunt, sharp. Regulus seemed to have a distaste for that. "I know you're trying to spare me some panic, and thank you, but I've known this day could come for five years. However, Fabian has had to go to St. Mungo's, which complicates matters. Not just of his safety, but my own if I attempt to pack up his things. I suppose if I fall into some unknown oblivion, it would be an effective hiding place, but it would also make coming back from that very difficult. I'm not the first person identified. There are people far more brazen about their affiliation than I, and they're not dead yet. Perhaps there's some cautious optimism to be found while also packing up."

"To a degree, though it's not always about brazenness. It's about priority and timing - and sometimes it's about the blood immunity, but if there is a point to be made, that is not as safe as I assumed. When there is a lesson to be taught, or an offense too great, the rules change." Regulus shook his head. "But you shouldn't be in immediate danger, no."

"You're smart enough and have been around it long enough now to know there aren't any rules," Gideon said, letting the comment hit where it may. Given who they tried to recruit, blackmail, or force into their pockets, there was no such thing as immunity in the long run, not for anyone. "It operates in the act first, explain later. It's surprisingly Gryffindorish."

"To be more precise, explanations are optional and rules are illusory," Regulus countered dryly.

"I stand by my statement." Everyone involved was likely to object to the comparison, but Gidoen found it fitting. "Though you're causing some of that plausible deniability problem by talking about it with that amount of authority."

Gideon held his breath waiting for the response to that. It could be nothing, but the logical alternatives _were_ starting to chip away, and given that Regulus had chosen to break his silence with that amount of confidence, Gideon was starting to feel dread pooling in his stomach. Could it be - ?

Regulus's mouth tugged down to another withdrawn frown, but if he was startled by the implication he didn't look like it.

"I am privy to a great deal on that particular subject." Mouth thinning, he paused for a brief moment, then added, "The list of people I feel I can rely on is extraordinarily short right now, but the situation does present its own dilemma."

If half of your family were Death Eaters, or at least supported their ideology, that would give that kind of situation. It was still explainable. He'd have to ask, right out.

"You know what that sounds like," Gideon said. "Was it on purpose?"

"Was what on purpose?" Regulus said, eyes still diverted.

"The implication of knowledge that isn't second or third or however many hands that would be appropriate," Gideon specified. It was a ludicrous thought; he fit almost none of the known criteria beyond association. Truthfully, Gideon himself probably fell under the same category.

"It was purposeful," he replied, still looking uncomfortable, "and goes against my more logical judgement too, but the situation grows increasingly sticky. I suppose I'm hoping you will reciprocate the courtesy of leaving Aurors out of it."

Gideon fought the urge to sit down. "...Are you certain?"

"That I don't want to get murdered or thrown in prison? I'm pretty certain about that, yes," Regulus said to the floor, "but I'm certain I don't want to hurt anyone or be part of the Death Eaters either, hence the dilemma..."

Regulus Black, potential Death Eater.

That wouldn't make sense in terms of temperament or specialty. Regulus was barely eighteen, he had no specific specialty to be recognised for, he was extremely soft-spoken, and most telling of all, didn't seem overly bothered by blood politics as long as no one was watching him. The things about him that were indicators that he could be tapped were smaller than most; he was pure, but so was Gideon. There was something to be said for the environment; as far as he knew, Gideon wasn't directly related to any Death Eaters, but complicated was an understatement when it came to those corners of families. It was unpredictable.

So unpredictable that Gideon was now almost certain that, despite being in his proximity, he hadn't noticed Regulus getting tapped, nor had he figured out why he would say yes. Family pressure, possibly, but...fear was also a possibility. Not everyone would feel confident enough to say no.

"Aurors aren't the biggest fans of vigilantism either," Gideon replied. Looking at Regulus's expression and the fact he'd come here at all, trying to make sense of it was treating him like a puzzle instead of a person. He owed that, if nothing else. "Forgive me. I'm a little flabbergasted."

"I suppose that's better than the alternative, in which it's obvious…"

"They were quick," Gideon said. He was too tired to process this in any meaningful way beyond that thought.

Regulus looked up then, raising his brow. "The Death Eaters, do you mean?"

Gideon nodded. "You're barely out of school."

Regulus nodded, slightly. "Age isn't really a concern."

"That may be the most disturbing thing you've said tonight," Gideon said, after a moment of blank silence. They'd been so sure that under Dumbledore's care, the students were at least exempt from those shoulder taps. "And our conversations have included my potential murder."

Regulus shrugged again, though he looked slightly more off his footing for a moment, keeping his unfocused stare at the floor.

"This is completely..." Gideon started.

How was Regulus possibly this calm in this situation? What did he truly know? Had Gideon managed to endanger people without meaning to, or...

"Are you always so unflappable? Is there a trick to it on your side of the family I'm not aware of that gives the ability to face your expectations being turned upside down with aplomb?" Gideon asked. He had little aplomb and was definitely not unflappable. He was flapping enough that given an open sky, he'd have probably flown halfway to Birmingham by now.

"I try…" He slanted his mouth, slightly. "Though my expectations have admittedly been upside down for a while."

That wasn't a surprise. "You might be the least violent person I know. I'm genuinely struggling to think of someone I know who's less prone to violence."

"I don't care for it at all," Regulus said with a flattened expression. "The goal was to calm everyone down after the chaos of Sirius leaving, and to a degree, it worked, but it hasn't exactly gone as I envisioned."

There was nothing like a statement like that to reaffirm how _young_ he was. It made Gideon want to swear loudly and repeatedly.

It made a sickening amount of sense, this idea that teenagers could get recruited on the backs of the idea it could fix something that was a mess in their lives - school, family, prospects. If there was one thing those who kept pure did better than anyone else was make family into a prestige symbol instead of something you're just a part of because of who you were born to. It wouldn't be the first time he'd seen people try to 'fix' things. Benjy had a million stories of kids trying to brew and cast above their level to try to ease the anxiety of the threat against their families; the Reversal squad had come to the aid of people who'd tried to ward their homes and managed to injure themselves and others in the process.

The one thing almost everyone seemed to share was that a sense of fear. It was stupid in hindsight not to realise that included some of the Death Eaters themselves. Fear was a powerful motivator and an even more powerful deterrent. In the meantime, everyone kills each other while Voldemort himself gets away with doing whatever he feels like. He couldn't fault it as a method, no matter how despicable and gross it was.

"I don't imagine he's so keen on giving two weeks notice when things have calmed down," Gideon said.

"Perhaps a two weeks notice to your murder if you're a good dodger," Regulus replied, dryly.

"I hope you're giving me better odds than that," Gideon replied. He needed more time than he had to try and formulate some idea of where to go from here.

"If it makes you feel any better, the order was dropped on me specifically, and I have no intention of following through... So you have at least until they figure that out."

"Sounds like one of our riddles," Gideon said, testing the waters a little to see if he could see even a hint of a ripple. "How to neutralise a murder that is not intended to happen without getting anyone killed in the process."

"I wouldn't mind finding a solution to that riddle," Regulus said, then pressed his lips to a line.

"Do you want to?" If he didn't know what the 'rebellion' was...was this some backwards way of asking for help? As if Regulus believed that Gideon would only get involved and help if he himself and his brother were in danger? It would have been enough just to ask, but maybe Regulus didn't know that. Maybe he didn't know exactly how valuable first hand knowledge was, either. "Not pose it to the group necessarily, but... I don't know, what does a solution look like to you? That's always a good place to start."

"To put it simply, the end result looks like not killing anyone, and no one killing or imprisoning us," Regulus began, mouth angling. "As for the solution of how to get there… I suppose I've been trying to figure that out for months. Initially, I considered just…" - a subtle pause before continuing - "faking my own death, but I... felt obligated to return, so here I am... Ignoring it was always going to be a short-term solution, and that is reaching the end of its viability."

Crinkling his nose, slightly, Regulus continued, "I suppose the current plan is… identifying people who won't murder me, imprison me, or otherwise make a hindrance of themselves. A workable solution depends on the people involved, so the specific plan has been more nebulous than I would prefer…"

"I'm not trying to murder you," Gideon said. He had considered that to be an unwritten rule of the study group too, but he'd never actually said so explicitly. Hadn't realised it'd come up. "Getting each other arrested is against the quest rules. What would I potentially hinder?"

"That is why it was an 'or', not an 'and'. I assume you won't murder me, and you don't personally have the authority to arrest me, but spreading information to other people can be a hindrance, whether or not the intention is negative," Regulus replied. "There have been some… well-meaning hindrances along the way. Discretion is important, and I told you with the hope that you can honour that."

"I didn't mean it that way," Gideon said, raising his hands to palms. He could still grab his wand - he wasn't completely stupid - but a showing of trust seemed necessary in response. "I'm asking if you want to leave and ignore it all for the rest of the war or if this is a more personal grudge. If I'm going to offer any sort of help, it's good to know what help you need."

"The time for simply disappearing has passed. I have responsibilities I need to see through," Regulus said, shaking his head. "But… regardless, yes, I would say there is a personal element of retaliation involved. I don't care for being ignored, lied to, pawned, or threatened."

"Yeah, I heard about your date with Alice's little cousin," Gideon said. A Death Eater was dating Alice's cousin, which was a horrifying thought, except to look at Regulus, he thought Regulus might be much more afraid of her than the other way around. Talk about managing to trap yourself and digging in deeper with every movement. "You're going to have some fun and games if the Lestranges and Frank and Alice have to be in the same room."

"A stressful scenario," Regulus replied, grimacing. "Although - depending on how this all resolves they may _all_ hate me too much for dinner in any context, much less with each other. I suppose we shall see."

"I'm going to have to cancel on any time with Uncle Ignatius for a while too," Gideon sighed. It wasn't fair to put them in danger over this. "But do you want to just see how it shakes out, or do you feel like doing some shaking? It's a unique opportunity to have a foot behind both doors when it comes to problem solving. It would require some boundary setting, but I'm willing to give anything a shot."

Regulus lifted his brow, but he was at least looking at Gideon's face again. "What do you have in mind?"

"Small steps," Gideon said, putting his fingers a little way apart. He didn't know how anyone would take the idea yet, and while he'd hardly caused a peep at spending time with muggleborns or werewolves, he had just admitted to being a Death Eater. "If kids are being pulled in, then for a start, I want to see if there's a way to shut that down. Aside from that, I'll answer your questions - or explain why I can't answer them on the grounds of incriminating someone else or endangering lives - if you'll do the same. Two perspectives might be better than one."

Regulus nodded, slightly. "That sounds reasonable enough."

"I'm a reasonable person," Gideon said. Most of the time. "What conditions do you have?"

"A say in what information is distributed, and to whom," Regulus replied, arms folding again with a little shift from foot to foot. "I am willing to trust you, but I don't trust everyone you associate with, whether known or unknown. I have my own plans in place, but they are delicate, and one person saying or doing the wrong thing could very easily disrupt them. They are already at risk, as it is."

That was it? Really? That was just common sense. "Is that really all you're asking for? Common courtesy?"

"Well, that and not getting murdered or arrested, as previously mentioned," Regulus said, shifting again. "Am I supposed to be asking for something else?"

"Don't look at me, I've never done this sort of thing before. I'm just feeling it out as I go." Gideon was taking a risk, but he did owe Regulus one, so maybe it was worth a leap of faith. He could have been dead already. He'd been tired, and he'd let a Death Eater - even one who didn't want to be there - into the house without ever suspecting anything. How many other people had died that way? Gideon pushed the thought away. It wasn't any good to dwell on what might have happened when what is happening is an opportunity. "For example, what kind of question would be off-limits?"

"I won't just spew out names, for one thing. As much as I would like to hinder the effectiveness of the Death Eaters, I'm seeking to dismantle in other ways, and I'm not a loose-lipped rat. The Dark Lord's destruction and an end to the war are my goals. Confirmations are on my terms," Regulus said, more certainty in his tone again. "If I don't wish to talk about something, then most likely, I won't. Making a list would only plant those topics as points of curiosity…" A pause, and then, "With the exception of family, which I will specify - I don't intend to betray or abandon them."

"As long as you're willing to accept the same terms from me," Gideon said. He reached out one of his hands. "I think we have a deal."

Regulus nodded and clasped his hand in return. "I think we do."

"Done."

* * *

Silence was no stranger to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, but there was a special sort of silence reserved for the earliest hours of the morning, as close to midnight as it was to dawn. As a child, Regulus had slept too soundly to experience that particular brand of quiet, but the more disrupted life became, so too was the night.

Inferi clawed at his skull when he tried to sleep for too long, and when it wasn't inferi, it was the angry clash of his disappointed family. At least when he was awake, he could try to distract himself.

He had half a mind to send Sirius an owl to fill him in on Gideon, but an owl out of the house did not feel much more secure than an owl coming in. That was likely a conversation better suited in person - the less written down, the better. With a strange pang, he thought about how his brother's birthday was only a day away. Maybe after - wouldn't want to accidentally end up in the same room as Potter...

Regulus still wasn't sure if it had been the right decision, speaking so candidly to Gideon. The more people who knew, the more people could let it slip - whether his Death Eater status, or his desire to leave that status behind. Gideon was a sort of extended family, but he was no less a gamble - a gamble that had yet to backfire, but Regulus knew he could not count himself as clear. Perhaps it would never feel safe enough to assume he was clear, but with his window of effectiveness in the Death Eaters starting to close, something needed to change, and if the vigilante Order of the Phoenix was the enemy of his enemy, maybe a bit of collaboration could spark ideas, at the very least. If Gideon was a member, they couldn't _all_ be doltish Gryffindors.

His mind flickered back to the cup, now stashed under his bed with the locket, and his heart started to thump again. He was taking steps to subtly heal his hand - the only physical evidence of his visit - but if Bella were to find out what he'd done…

Regulus shook his head. The decoy had been well done, if he did say so himself, and with all the chaos, he was likely unnoticed in his absence - it could be fine. A guilty conscience was likely to show - but neither bit of optimistic logic were doing much for the nerves bunching up at the back of his brain.

Huddled by the drawing room mantle, Regulus watched the roaring flames dance and flicker, melting away the November chill from that small corner of the house. He could have re-cast warming charms upon waking up, but the fire, at least, gave him something mindless to look at when his thoughts started to drift from the Occlumency book open on his lap. He ought to reach out to Andromeda again, too…

He didn't notice the presence of another person in the room until he heard his mother's voice from behind him: "I see you've decided to return."

It was obvious she had been in bed, or at least, had at some point, as she wore a dressing gown over nightclothes. Her wand was only half-lit, perhaps why he hadn't seen it coming.

In response, Regulus nodded, unsure if he was supposed to say anything further.

"It's late." Somehow both a statement, an accusation, and a question.

"I have a lot on my mind," he replied, carefully.

"Which you will still have on your mind tomorrow," his mother replied. "Whether or not you decide to spend half the night brooding here or sleep. If you're intending to sit up half the night, be productive with it."

"I'm reading," he replied, holding the open book, though it sounded more like an argument than he had intended. "About occlumency."

"You're sulking while holding a book," his mother said, sharply. She strode a few steps, as if she wanted to look at the book to verify he was in fact reading. "What use do you have of occlumency?"

"Membership in an organisation that would both disapprove of my... critical perspective and frequently implements legilimency to punish critical perspectives," he replied, which was true, if only partially. "I thought it prudent to take precautions."

There was a beat of silence. "Punish in which way?"

"Given the accepted philosophy on leaving, I'm trying to avoid personal experience," he replied, thinking that probably ought to be obvious by now.

"You are trying the very last of my patience with this _mood_ you've decided to have," his mother said. "If visiting Narcissa reduces you to a mouthy teenager, I recommend no longer doing it till you've learned to control yourself."

Regulus winced. "I apologise…" he replied, eyes locked on the floor at his mother's feet. For a moment, he thought that he ought to just shut his mouth and let the conversation sit. Was he being 'mouthy'? He was only answering her question. Even trying to soften his concerns was interpreted as a bad attitude, and his mother was one of the few people who was at least _sometimes_ receptive…

Yet he did not want to leave the blame on Narcissa, when there were so many other things souring his mood. A justifiable 'mood', he thought, though. Reluctantly, he began again.

"...But the visit with Narcissa is not to blame, exactly. More the fact that Bellatrix ambushed the visit, probably to make certain I attended the night's cemetery attack - and to remind me that a continued lack of enthusiasm will not end in a way that I would like." The reluctance had given way to a drier tone by the end, and he clamped his mouth shut before it worsened.

"We had an agreement you wouldn't be attending anything," his mother said, less accusatory without the pointed tone. "But vague threats cannot be tolerated either. You will have to learn to say no."

"It wasn't exactly posed as a question…" he said, carefully. Technically, he supposed that skipping out on the attack was sort of like a 'no', but even to save face with his mother, that wasn't information he intended to offer up. "You… you asked me to be careful, and I'm trying to be careful. Saying no to her face would only make her angry. It's unlikely to actually get me out of having to go."

"So you truly fear making that girl angry?" his mother said, bluntly. "You're not a child anymore. Being afraid of one of your own cousins is ridiculous. You can't truly think she would do anything remotely permanent."

'She very likely would,' Regulus wanted to say, even as he held his expression very carefully still. His entire frame had stiffened in a collective bodily effort to keep anything combative from escaping his mouth, and in absence of that, he was not sure how he was meant to reply when anything remotely sincere was likely to tip his mother from annoyed to angry, herself. Bellatrix was unlikely to murder him on the spot, certainly, but the knock on effect would be very, very permanent… Was it childish to be wary of that?

"You are," his mother said, slowly. "You fear her. Why?"

"I'm not a child," he forced himself to say aloud, though he felt far more ridiculous than he had at the start of the conversation. "It's - more about repercussions. I know she wouldn't cover for me if I refused to go, and at that point, it hardly even matters if she ever personally draws her wand, because someone else would."

"Do you have so little faith in your own capabilities that this scares you?" his mother asked. "Are you truly that useless with a wand?"

"I'm not _useless_ ," he responded, more sharply than intended, his mind immediately backpedaling the moment the words escaped. Whiteknuckling his book, he lifted it enough to give his eyes something to look at, without having to duck his head more than necessary. "Nevermind. Just forget I said anything. I'll figure it out."

"Do _NOT_ take that tone with me!" his mother snarled back in response. "Behave like a sullen child, and you'll be treated like one. Go to bed, Regulus."

Jaw clenching, Regulus closed the book on his hand and stood up without meeting her eyes. Heat was flushing at his eyes and temple, creeping along his face, though he couldn't tell if it spawned more from the frustration or from the strange feeling of humiliation. He couldn't recall his mother being that condescending towards him when he had been an _actual_ child, but even if he could have found words to say, his throat was too knotted to get them out.

Stiffly, he crossed the drawing room, and when he reached the door, hand lingering on the handle, he had half a temptation to slam it, to do _something_ that felt less like slinking away from an unfair scolding. The temptation was short-lived, as he breathed it away, reminding himself that petulant children slammed doors. There was no way that trying it out, even once, would be worth the inevitable lecture.

Making a point to shut the door very calmly behind himself, he took another steadying breath and scaled the stairs to the top landing. By the time he had collapsed on his bed, the flush was cooling - if slightly - but the frustration was still buzzing around his skull like angry bees. He had not meant to feel that way; she was his mother, not his enemy, but it seemed like he was suddenly incapable of saying anything right. Saying nothing? Weak. Saying anything remotely accurate? Mouthy. He wasn't _mouthy_. Sirius was mouthy.

Flipping onto his stomach, his eyes begged for sleep, but he stubbornly pushed himself to sit up, scooting to the head of the bed with his book.

At least the rest of the night was likely to be quiet.


End file.
